Ancient DNA helps reveal the tangled branches of the human family tree. Not only did our ancestors live alongside other human species, they mated with them, too.
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.
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
Modern day people of short stature became physically small due to the effects of living on a small island or forested environment. But we’re not sure why “the Hobbit” of Flores was so small.
Excavations at Kalinga in Luzon’s Cagayan Valley (Philippines).
G.D. van den Bergh
New research on Indonesian fossils reveals clues to an ancient expansion out of Africa.
Image (left) of the Mata Menge lower jaw fragment (SOA-MM4) superimposed on the Homo floresiensis skull (LB1) from Liang Bua, and compared with a modern human skull from the Jomon Period of Japan.
Y. Kaifu
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
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…