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Articles sur Human evolution

Affichage de 161 à 180 de 192 articles

Ancient DNA can tell you a lot more than skull shape about the origins of the first Europeans. Flickr/Sebastian Dooris

Ancient DNA sheds light on the origin of Europeans

Much of the evidence of where the first Europeans came from was originally derived from comparisons of skulls but our work looking at ancient DNA is revealing new insight, with results published this month…
The human Y chromosome has retained only 3% of its ancestral genes. So why’s it a shadow of its former self? Rafael Anderson Gonzales Mendoza/Flickr

Sex, genes, the Y chromosome and the future of men

The Y chromosome, that little chain of genes that determines the sex of humans, is not as tough as you might think. In fact, if we look at the Y chromosome over the course of our evolution we’ve seen it…
Thomas Sutikna holds the skull of LB1, the type specimen of the ‘Hobbit’, Homo floresiensis. Indonesian National Centre for Archaeology (ARKENAS)/University of Wollongong

A decade on and the Hobbit still holds secrets

Ten years ago today in Australia and Indonesia the scientific world was turned on its head. By a very small head, as it happens. We were part of the original joint Australian-Indonesian research team involved…
The Gibraltar Museum says scratched patterns found in the Gorham’s Cave, in Gibraltar, are believed to be more than 39,000 years old, dating back to the times of the Neanderthals. EPA/Stewart Finlayson

Is that rock hashtag really the first evidence of Neanderthal art?

There has been much excitement over recent reports that something found in a cave in Gibraltar is the first known example of Neanderthal art. But what exactly has been found, can it be believed and, if…
Evolution is still the favoured theory, according to fossil records. Flickr/Brent Danley

Life on Earth still favours evolution over creationism

Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, first published in 1859, offered a bold new explanation for how animals and plants diversified and still serves as the foundation underpinning all medical and biological…
Tom Higham and Katerina Douka uncover evidence that early humans and Neanderthals lived alongside each other for thousands of years. Thomas Higham

Early humans lived with Neanderthal neighbours

A new study has dated the final days of the Neanderthals and found they lived at the same time as the earliest modern humans in Europe. Rather than seeing Neanderthals suddenly vanish at the time modern…
Gaudy appearance, cocky sashay, singing voice … peacock or Jagger? EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga

Strut your stuff: how rockstars and peacocks attract the ladies

What is it that makes rockstars so attractive to the opposite sex? Turns out Charles Darwin had it pegged hundreds of years ago – and it has a lot to do with peacocks. In The Descent of Man, and Selection…
This half-million year old skull is helping answer controversial archaeological questions. Javier Trueba/Madrid Scientific Films

Chew on this: Neanderthal jaws evolved before brains

Ancient remains have confirmed that the face and jaw evolved before the rest of the skull in Neanderthals and early human ancestors. Research conducted at the Sima de los Huesos (Pit of the Bones) archaeological…
For millennia, humans have had the tools to change the atmosphere: when will we develop a sense of caution? AK Rockefeller/Flickr

Human global domination began with fire, not factories or farms

The era in which humans have had the power to alter the conditions for all life on Earth is widely thought to have begun with the Industrial Revolution 250 years ago. This era has been dubbed the “Anthropocene…
One fifth of Neanderthal DNA is found in the human genome … how much is in you? Flickr/suchosch

Neanderthals and humans: an interspecies affair to remember

Research out today in leading science journals firms up estimates of interbreeding between the now extinct Neanderthals and the ancestors of living Eurasians. They also provide new explanations about the…
Symbolic behaviour like burial brings us and Neanderthals of the past closer. Gareth Fuller/PA

Neanderthal dispute laid to rest – they buried their dead

Ever since the discovery of the well preserved, nearly complete, 50,000-year-old Neanderthal skeleton in a pit dug in a cave in La Chapelle-aux-Saints, southwest France, it has been long debated as to…
I’m more of a cricket man, really. Ben Birchall/PA

By studying animal behaviour we gain an insight into our own

In the field of animal behaviour, there is one topic that is almost guaranteed to get your study in the popular press: showing how an animal behaves just like humans. This can be solving problems, using…
Spotting the difference between skulls - this is the Dmanisi D4500 early Homo cranium - is trickier than it seems. Photo courtesy of Georgian National Museum

Of heads and headlines: can a skull doom 14 human species?

A newly discovered 1.8 million-year-old skull from Eastern Europe has been pitched as disproving a decades-old paradigm in human evolution. Its discoverers claim the find sinks more than a dozen species…
Detailed excavations of a Bolivian large mound known locally as Isla del Tesoro (Treasure Island) have revealed evidence of humans living in the region much earlier than first thought. Lombardo U, Szabo K, Capriles JM, May J-H, Amelung W, et al. (2013)

Hidden in middens: new clues of earliest known Bolivian Amazon humans

Researchers have discovered the earliest evidence yet of humans living in the Bolivian Amazon, putting the first known human habitation of the region at about 8000 years earlier than was previously thought…
Our brains predispose us to a quick fix, but with the right leadership we could choose a path to different future. Scott Ogilive

Wanted: political leader with a vision for a sustainable future

A sustainable future remains within our grasp but - thanks to the way human brains work - only governments can implement many of the necessary strategies. Our political leaders have a unique responsibility…
Baboons can be shy, just like you. Arno Meintjes Wildlife

Hungry baboons are a lesson in human personality

Our individual, varied personalities are among the traits often cited as those that distinguish us from the rest of the animal kingdom. However, as we, like the rest of life on Earth, are products of natural…

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