Paul Pettitt, Durham University Imagine that you have an unhealthy interest in your neighbours’ lives. Unable to ask them directly, you rifle through their rubbish bins. You find the bones of cooked chickens and try and work out what else they eat. This is a bit like how archaeologists studyRead More →
Mary Prendergast, Rice University For the first time, a Nobel Prize recognized the field of anthropology, the study of humanity. Svante Pääbo, a pioneer in the study of ancient DNA, or aDNA, was awarded the 2022 prize in physiology or medicine for his breathtaking achievements sequencing DNA extracted from ancientRead More →
Evan Simons, University at Buffalo Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. How did humans evolve, and will they evolve more? – Anya T., 13, Brookline, Massachusetts Everything that is alive todayRead More →
Matthew Robert Bennett, Bournemouth University and Sally Christine Reynolds, Bournemouth University Fossilised footprints, and more rarely, hand prints, can be found around the world; left as people went about their daily business, preserved by freak acts of geological preservation. In new research our international team have discovered ancient hand andRead More →
New drill core shows a boom-bust landscape in the east African rift valley at a defining moment in human evolution, technology and culture. For hundreds of thousands of years, early humans in the East African Rift Valley could expect certain things of their environment. Freshwater lakes in the region ensuredRead More →
Discovery may indicate modern humans and Neanderthals lived in the area concurrently Modern humans arrived in the westernmost part of Europe 41,000 – 38,000 years ago, about 5,000 years earlier than previously known, according to Jonathan Haws, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University ofRead More →
An unusual skullcap and thousands of clues have created a southern twist to the story of human ancestors, in research published in Science on 3 April. The rolling hills northwest of Johannesburg are famous for fossils of human-like creatures called hominins. Because of this, the area is known as the Cradle ofRead More →
Human ancestors that lived more than 3 million years ago had brains that were organized like chimpanzee brains, but had prolonged brain growth like humans, new research from the University of Chicago and other leading institutions shows. That means these hominins — the species Australopithecus afarensis, made famous by the LucyRead More →
