Our findings reveal the slowing down of brain development in our ape-like ancestors began more than three million years ago.
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Articles on Human history
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Understanding our evolution can tell us a lot about the health challenges we face today.
Archaeologists have uncovered a 2,000-year-old amber bead scam. But humans have been making fake jewels and icons for much longer than that.
Rainforests may have played far more of a role in shaping human evolution than previously thought.
When did Australia’s human history begin?
The Conversation, CC BY16.6 MB (download)
Today's episode of Essays On Air, the audio version of our Friday essay series, seeks to move beyond the view of ancient Australia as a timeless and traditional foundation story.
From the tropics of Borneo, Darren Curnoe posted a daily diary sharing his team's dig to explore ancient cemeteries. Through two metres of clay, human bones and tools were discovered.
Archaeology is not only about stones and bones: it is mainly about the people of the past. DNA is one way to get from the stones and the bones to the people and their stories.
Evolutionary biologists ask very similar questions about species to those asked by linguists about languages.
Evidence of Homo naledi's age suggests we need to rethink our understanding of human history and evolution.
The environment minister recently told a conference that agriculture is as old as 'mankind'. She's out by a few million years.
Ask any anthropologist what they do and they will find it hard to give you a direct answer. But it ultimately comes down to studying people and their culture.
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.
Top contributors
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Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW
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Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH), University of Wollongong
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Lecturer, Deakin University
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Professor in Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University
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ARC Laureate Fellow, Monash University, and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Monash University
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Principal Research Associate, UCL
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Senior Research Associate in Translational Genomics, University of Oxford
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Adjunt Senior Research Fellow, University of South Australia
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Paleoanthropologist, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
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Senior Research Fellow, Griffith University
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Tanya M. Smith is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University
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Professor with Research Focus in Stone Age Archaeology, Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg
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Group Leader, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
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Professor, University of Chicago
