Humans have used technology to adapt to the cold.
Yvette Cardozo / Alamy Stock Photo
Hate winter? The answer may lie in our evolutionary history.
Descendants of the indigenous San people in the Kalahari Desert.
Eric Lafforgue/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Image
The first speech sounds were uttered about 70,000 years ago and not hundreds of thousands of years ago as is sometimes claimed.
Derek R. Audette/Shutterstock
Humanity carries traces of other populations in our DNA – and a new study shows how one of these ancestors has influenced the immune systems of modern Papuans.
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New study shows Neanderthals and Homo sapiens had a taste for sharp and bitter food.
Neanderthal reproduction in Trento Museum of Natural History.
Luca Lorenzelli/Shutterstock
Neanderthals were wiped out by chance changes in the environment. The rise of Homo sapiens wasn’t inevitable.
One in 8 billion.
oneinchpunch/Shutterstock
Only insects populations can compare to rising human numbers.
3D rendering of an Neanderthal man.
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Zinc in their bones reveal that these early humans were top of the food chain.
Artist: Tom Björklund / Moesgård Museum
Here’s what we can learn from our closest extinct relatives.
During ice ages, ice sheets like the one in Greenland have covered much of Earth’s surface.
Thor Wegner/DeFodi Images via Getty Images
The Earth has had at least five major ice ages, and humans showed up in time for the most recent one. In fact, we’re still in it.
A man identified only as Viktor shows his neighbor’s grave in Bucha, Ukraine. It was too dangerous to go to the cemetery.
Jana Cavojska/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Ukrainian families’ anguish at not being able to bury their loved ones underscores a deep human need, an anthropologist writes.
Where’s next for Homo Sapiens?
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We’ll probably be less aggressive and more agreeable, but have smaller brains – a bit like a Golden Retriever, we’ll be friendly, but maybe not that interesting or bright.
Together with artifacts from the past, ancient DNA can fill in details about our ancient ancestors.
Nina R/Wikimedia Commons
A new study doubles the age of ancient DNA in sub-Saharan Africa, revealing how people moved, mingled and had children together over the last 50,000 years.
A photogrammetry image of the tracks. The horizontal and vertical scales are in metres.
CHARLES HELM
Human tracks registered in aeolianites - cemented dune surfaces - are rare at a global level.
Would we see Neanderthals (right) as human if they were around today?
wikipedia
What looks like a bright, sharp dividing line between humans and other animals is really an artefact of extinction.
What our relative may have looked like.
CREDIT Chuang Zhao
A new analysis of a ‘lost’ skull rewrites the recent family tree of the human species, showing our closest relatives lived in China.
Yossi Zaidner
The 140,000-year-old skull fossils are leading to more questions than answers. Also found was the oldest intact campfire ever found in the open air.
Collection of sediment DNA samples in the Main Chamber of Denisova Cave.
Bert Roberts
Our research has also uncovered major long-term changes in ancient animal populations at Denisova Cave, and has provided the first direct evidence of Homo sapiens having lived there.
Shutterstock/PopTika
We studied people’s brains while they held tools correctly and incorrectly.
Virtual ideal reconstruction of Mtoto’s position in the burial pit.
Jorge González/Elena Santos
Burials seem to have been uncommon in Africa some 80,000 years ago, although they were widespread in Eurasia.
This skull, found in France, was among the first fossils to be recognized as belonging to our own species.
DEA /G. Cigolini via Getty Images
Our biggest evolutionary advantages are an ability to walk on two legs and our big brains.