Denisovans Once Roamed Southwest China, New Fossils Reveal
Paleoanthropologists have identified a trove of Denisovan fossils from a cave in China’s Yunnan province, extending the known…
Anthropologist Proposes Folding Australopithecus and Paranthropus into Genus Homo
Dr. Ian Towle, a researcher with the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University, proposes folding nearly 5 million…
Denisovans Were Surprisingly Tall, New Fossils from Taiwan Suggest
Two fossilized leg bones of Denisovans — an extinct archaic Homo group whose lineage diverged from the Neanderthal…
Study Points to Sugar, Not Just Meat, as Fuel for Human Brain Evolution
A team of researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of Glasgow argues that dietary sugars,…
Scientists Find Traces of Two Unknown Archaic Hominins in Human DNA
New research led by the University of California, Berkeley reveals that beyond Neanderthals and Denisovans, humans interbred with…
Ancient Turkish Cave Reveals Neanderthals and Homo sapiens Shared Same Way of Life
Üçağızlı II Cave on Türkiye’s Mediterranean coast has yielded a rare and detailed record of two Homo species…
Scientists Recover Ancient Human DNA from Cave Walls
For the first time, researchers have extracted ancient human DNA directly from the walls of a cave. Although…
New Research Traces Origins of Human Laughter
The way humans laugh — in rapid, rhythmically timed bursts — is not uniquely ours. New research by…
Ancient DNA Sheds Light on Final Chapter of Neanderthal Life in Northwestern Europe
Scientists have generated genetic data from 27 Neanderthals who lived in Belgium and France less than approximately 52,500 years…
Acheulean Toolmakers Chose Their Stone with Surprising Precision
Geochemical analysis of 780,000-year-old stone tools from Israel suggests Acheulean (or Acheulian) hominins repeatedly sought specific basalt sources,…
Neanderthals May Have Used Birch Tar as Natural Antibiotic
New experiments show that tar made from birch bark — long known as a tool adhesive — can…
Study: Ancient Mating Preferences, Not Natural Selection, Helped Shape Human Genome
Prehistoric humans and Neanderthals didn’t just interbreed, they did so with a consistent sex bias, as male Neanderthals…