Richard ‘Bert’ Roberts, Vladimir Uliyanov and Maxim Kozlikin (clockwise from top) examining sediments in the East Chamber of Denisova Cave.
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Author provided
New studies reveal when the Denisovans and their Neanderthal cousins occupied a cave in southern Siberia. It's the only site known to have been inhabited by them and by modern humans.
Neanderthals may not have been hunting in the tundra after all.
Aboriginal Australians have effectively been on their country for as long as modern human populations have been outside of Africa. We have a limit as to how long ago that was: around 50,000 years.
New tools add to an emerging view of the past as a turbulent “Game of Thrones” style scenario, with distinct early human ancestors living in Eurasia before Homo sapiens arrived.
Rolf Quam, Binghamton University, State University of New York
New discoveries are changing archaeologists' ideas about the origins of our own species and our migration out of Africa. This fossil pushes Homo sapiens' African exodus date back by 50,000 years.
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.
Homo neanderthalensis reconstruction.
Matteo De Stefano/MUSE Science ms
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.