Human evolution’s biggest mystery, which emerged 15 years ago from a 60,000-year-old pinkie finger bone, finally started to ...

Revolutionary fossil evidence from Ethiopia is challenging decades of scientific consensus about human origins. New discoveries suggest that the famous Lucy fossil, long considered a direct ancestor ...

Scientists have long debated how modern humans evolved. For decades, most researchers agreed that Homo sapiens came from one ancestral group in Africa, dating back 200,000 to 300,000 years. But new ...

From an incredible series of revelations about the ancient humans called Denisovans to surprising discoveries about tool making, this year has given us a clearer picture of how and why humans evolved ...

John Gowlett receives funding from PAST Africa and Wenner-Gren Foundation, and his work has previously been supported by The Leverhulme Trust. He is associated with a new series of podcasts on human ...

An experimental study of modern chimpanzees has documented patterns of behavior that seemingly mirror those of our prehistoric human ancestors, casting light on how our predecessors may have utilized ...

Modern humans descended from not one, but at least two ancestral populations that drifted apart and later reconnected, long before modern humans spread across the globe. Using advanced analysis based ...

Our species is defined by a long list of cultural and genetic traits that set us apart from our ancient counterparts. New research suggests at least some key distinctions date back earlier than ...

Smithsonian paleoanthropologists explore how the year brought us closer to understanding ancient human relatives and origins Ryan McRae and Briana Pobiner A young chimpanzee looks on during an outing ...

When studying how fossil hominids moved, researchers usually analyze the morphology of bones—which is crucial for ...

Humans and our ancestors have been exposed to lead for 2 million years, but the toxic metal may have actually helped our species to develop language — giving us a key advantage over our Neanderthal ...