How do scientists figure out when evolutionary events – like species splitting away from a common ancestor – happened? It turns out our DNA is a kind of molecular clock, keeping time via genetic changes.
Homo neanderthalensis reconstruction.
Matteo De Stefano/MUSE Science ms
A new study estimates the nutritional value of human flesh and challenges the belief that prehistoric humans engaged in cannibalism just to fill their stomachs.
Excavations at the limestone cave of Leang Bulu Bettue on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Justin Mott (Mott Visuals)
Ancient bone and teeth ornaments found in an Indonesian cave advance our knowledge of the culture and traditions of some of the earliest people in our region.
Humans have an innate interest and ability in naming biologically meaningful entities, or species. Taxonomy, then, vies for the title of world’s “oldest profession”.
Aubrey Lynch, elder from the Wongatha Aboriginal language group, participated in one of the studies.
Preben Hjort, Mayday Film.
New research into how early humans spread across the world settles several long-running debates.
A prehistoric hand-held multipurpose stone tool the size of a person’s palm recovered by a farmer in Kenya. More tools were found during a search.
Stephen Thompson
Scientists are hoping that ancient stone tools found on a family farm in Kenya will add to a clearer picture of the first appearance, duration and variation of prehistoric technologies found so far.
A replica of the remains of “Lucy” at the National Museum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Reuters/Barry Malone
New fossil finds show the first large-bodied inhabitants of an isolated Indonesian island evolved to Hobbit-size, but they always remembered how to make and use stone tools.
Excavations in Liang Bua, a limestone cave on the Indonesian island of Flores.
Smithsonian Digitization Program Office Liang Bua Team
The discovery of the world’s oldest jewellery at the Blombos Cave in South Africa has resulted in a paradigm shift in our understanding of human evolution.
A family migrating to western US in 1886.
Marion Doss/Flickr
Humans evolved in Africa, spread across the world, and then it gets messy. Luckily advances in genetic sequencing have helped us track the complex history of human migration.
Scientific evidence shows overwhelmingly that people across the world are genetic refugees from Africa.
Shutterstock
Despite science refuting the existence of different human races, people have used “race” throughout history to divide and denigrate certain people while promoting their claims of superiority.
New discovery has put some teeth into our understanding of human evolution.
Credit: S. Xing and X-J. Wu
The age of early humans has just been pushed back further than first thought thanks to the discovery of an ancient jaw bone in Africa. So just how old are early humans?
The skull of Liang Bua 1.
Courtesy Prof Michael Morwood
Claims that bones found in an Indonesian cave are not the remains of a new species of extinct hominin but more likely modern humans suffering from a chromosomal disorder have been disputed by a new look…
CENIEH Director, Atapuerca Research Team and author of "Homo imperfectus" (Ed. Destino), Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH)