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.
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Articles on Homo sapiens
Displaying 81 - 100 of 106 articles
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.
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.
The environment minister recently told a conference that agriculture is as old as ‘mankind’. She’s out by a few million years.
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”.
New research into how early humans spread across the world settles several long-running debates.
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.
When it comes to valuable African fossils, much is at stake. They often unearth disputed ways of debating archaeology as a science of ‘discovery’.
Why being human can’t be traced back to hunting, fire or any other single event.
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.
New excavations at an Indonesian cave have pushed back the time the ‘hobbits’ disappeared to about 50,000 years ago.
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.
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.
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 find shows we may have been underestimating the Neanderthals.
Ditching the testosterone meant humans were able to develop cooperative culture.
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?
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…
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…
Many people believe that what was found in Liang Bua Cave on the island of Flores in Indonesia in 2003-2004 was some variety of hobbit-like human or prehuman. Our research published today argues that it…
Top contributors
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Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University
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Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences at the University of Bath, University of Bath
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Associate Professor of Archaeology, Griffith University
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Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH), University of Wollongong
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Archéologue, penseur et chercheur au CNRS, Université de Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier
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Senior Researcher in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand
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Professor of Natural Sciences, UCL
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Senior Research Associate in Translational Genomics, University of Oxford
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Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Archaeology, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland
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Professor of Evolutionary Studies, Professor of African Prehistory, University of Bergen
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CENIEH Director, Atapuerca Research Team and author of "Homo imperfectus" (Ed. Destino), Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH)
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Researcher, Centre for Archeological Science, University of Wollongong
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Adjunct professor, UNSW Sydney
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Emeritus Professor, University of Cape Town
