45,000 years ago, people first started arriving in what’s known as Europe today. We thought a worsening ice age made them disappear – but it seems some lineages survived.
Thousands of ancient genomes have been sequenced to date. A Nobel Prize highlights tremendous opportunities for aDNA, as well as challenges related to rapid growth, equity and misinformation.
Around 200,000 years ago, people were living who were as intelligent as us.
Three upright walkers, including Lucy (center) and two specimens of Australopithecus sediba, a human ancestor from South Africa dating back nearly 2 million years.
Image compiled by Peter Schmid and courtesy of Lee R. Berger/Wikimedia Commons
Julien Louys, Griffith University; Gilbert Price, The University of Queensland; Huw Groucutt, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and Michael Petraglia, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
The new work presents the oldest dated evidence for hominins in Arabia, in the form of an ancient handaxe tool uncovered from the Nefud Desert.
Stone arrowheads (Maros points) and other flaked stone implements from the Toalean culture of South Sulawesi.
Shahna Britton/Andrew Thomson
The first ancient human DNA from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi — and the wider Wallacea islands group — sheds light on the early human history of the region.
This skull, found in France, was among the first fossils to be recognized as belonging to our own species.
DEA /G. Cigolini via Getty Images
Researchers unearthed the 105,000-year-old artefacts from a spiritual site in southern Africa. Although far from the coast, the area is associated with stories of a great water snake.
The Arctic is warming two to three times faster than any other place on Earth.
Kevin Xu Photography via Shutterstock
Long-standing assumption that humans killed large mammals 4.5m years ago has been debunked by researchers – but some experts still think humans played a part in the demise of biodiversity
Archaeological excavation at Ain Boucherit, Algeria.
Mathieu Duval