Long-standing assumption that humans killed large mammals 4.5m years ago has been debunked by researchers – but some experts still think humans played a part in the demise of biodiversity
Archaeological excavation at Ain Boucherit, Algeria.
Mathieu Duval
Rolf Quam, Binghamton University, State University of New York
New discoveries are changing archaeologists’ ideas about the origins of our own species and our migration out of Africa. This fossil pushes Homo sapiens’ African exodus date back by 50,000 years.
The story of where we come from evolves almost every year.
Shutterstock/Eugenio Marongiu
The evidence of a much earlier presence of humans in Indonesia was found more than 100 years ago. But only now has the age of the fossil teeth been accurately dated.
Hominin skull casts (L-R) Australopithecus afarensis, Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis.
Roger Seymour/South Australian Museum
New research into how early humans spread across the world settles several long-running debates.
New research challenges a previous view that humans got to America via this area, where an ice-free corridor existed during the last ice age.
Mikkel Winther Pedersen
A new study suggests the first humans probably got to America from Siberia via the Pacific coast rather than through a corridor between two giant ice sheets, as previously thought.
The 37,000 year old Deep Skull from Niah Cave in Borneo is the oldest modern human skeleton found in island Southeast Asia.
Darren Curnoe
Another look at a skull unearthed in Malaysian Borneo 60 years ago can shed light on the mystery of how early humans moved throughout Southeast Asia thousands of years ago.
Not all technologies are created equal. Researchers devised a new model to explain why, after eons of nothing much new, we sometimes see an explosion of innovation in the archaeological record.
The look of love? Human meets Neanderthal.
DrMikeBaxter/wikimedia