Scientists have long believed that our distant cousins are the placoderms, and ancient group of armoured fish. But a new study is casting doubt on that view.
Realizing that others’ minds hold different thoughts, feelings and knowledge than your own was thought to be something only people could do. But evidence is accumulating that apes, too, have ‘theory of mind.’
It helps society function when people punish selfish acts, even at a personal cost. A new theory suggests third-party punishment also confers some benefits on the punisher.
For human groups to grow from small, intimate communities to the huge interconnected societies we know now, people needed to be willing to cooperate with strangers. Religion might have played a big role.
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.
Author and ecologist Paul Ehrlich told Q&A that humans, on average, have associated with only about 150 other people for millions of years. Is that right?
The science about our special senses - vision, smell, hearing and taste - offers fascinating and unique perspectives on our evolution. Yet it remains patchy; we know surprisingly little for example about…
The challenge we face after a century of extraordinary discoveries is pinning down the lineage and mapping the evolutionary route through which we as human beings got here.
Apes and people are sharing habitat more than ever. As apes are pushed into novel situations, we can see how they adapt and maybe find clues into early human evolution.