Researchers unearthed the 105,000-year-old artefacts from a spiritual site in southern Africa. Although far from the coast, the area is associated with stories of a great water snake.
A Homo erectus skull from Java, Indonesia. This pioneering species stands at the root of a fascinating evolutionary tree.
Scimex
The ancestors of modern-day people living on Southeast Asian islands likely interbred with a prehistoric species called Denisovans - raising the possibility of fresh and intriguing fossil discoveries.
The brains of humans are subtly different from those of Neanderthals.
Petr Student/Shutterstock
A new environmental record for a prehistoric site in Kenya helped researchers figure out how external conditions influenced which of our ancient ancestors lived there, with what way of life.
These findings represent the earliest evidence for Homo sapiens on the Arabian Peninsula, and demonstrates the importance of Arabia for understanding human prehistory.
A: Border Cave’s 200,000 year old fossilised grass fragments. B: The profile section of desiccated grass bedding dating to around 43,000 years ago.
Both images copyright Lyn Wadley
Before 200,000 years ago, close to the origin of our species, people preferred the use of broad-leaved grasses to build their beds and resting areas using ash layers underneath.
Humans evolved to communicate through eye contact.
JGI/Jamie Grill via Getty Images
Research shows smartphone use disrupts an essential facet of human connection – eye contact.
Reptile, avian and mammal tracks and Middle Stone Age artefacts on a large track bearing surface which has since been buried by a landslide.
Images modified from Helm, et al. 2020. South African Journal of Science, 116
While crocodylian fossil swim traces have been described from other continents, to the best of our knowledge the examples we describe are the first such reptilian swim traces from Africa.
Homo rhodesiensis is an example of an archaic human.
wikipedia
Early humans in Africa may have interbred with a ghost population that likely split from the ancestors of humans and Neanderthals between 360,000 and 1.02 million years ago.
A quirk of psychology that affects the way people learn from others may have helped unlock the complicated technologies and rituals that human culture hinges on.
20 years ago, who could predict how much more researchers would know today about the human past – let alone what they could learn from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque, or satellites in space.
Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo
20 years ago, who could predict how much more researchers would know today about the human past – let alone what they could learn from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque, or satellites in space.
A Neanderthal skull shows head trauma, evidence of ancient violence.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Genetic analysis has traced the evolutionary footsteps of modern humans all the way back to a prehistoric wetland that spanned parts of modern-day Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Denisova Cave in Siberia has a rich fossil history of early humans - and deposits of droppings from hyenas, wolves and even bears, according to a new analysis of the cave’s dirt floor.
CENIEH Director, Atapuerca Research Team and author of "Homo imperfectus" (Ed. Destino), Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH)