Anthropology

Anthropology

Humanlike thumb dexterity may date back as far as 2 million years ago

A computer analysis suggests early Homo species developed a powerful grip, giving them an evolutionary edge over some other tool-using hominids.

Anthropology

Ice Age hunters’ leftovers may have fueled dog domestication

Ancient people tamed wolves by feeding them surplus game, researchers suggest.

Genetics

Plague may have caused die-offs of ancient Siberians

DNA suggests that the deadly bacterium that causes the plague reached northeast Asia by 4,400 years ago.

Archaeology

Ancient people may have survived desert droughts by melting ice in lava tubes

Bands of charcoal from fires lit long ago, found in an ice core from a New Mexico cave, correspond to five periods of drought over 800 years.

Anthropology

Ardi and her discoverers shake up hominid evolution in ‘Fossil Men’

A new book covers the big personalities, field exploits and scientific clashes behind the discovery of the hominid skeleton nicknamed Ardi.

Anthropology

Bolivia’s Tsimane people’s average body temperature fell half a degree in 16 years

A new study echoes other research suggesting that people’s average body temperature is lower today than it used to be.

Anthropology

Female big-game hunters may have been surprisingly common in the ancient Americas

A Peruvian burial that indicates that women speared large prey as early as 9,000 years ago sheds new light on gender roles of ancient hunter-gatherers.

Anthropology

These human nerve cell tendrils turned to glass nearly 2,000 years ago

Part of a young man’s brain was preserved in A.D. 79 by hot ash from Mount Vesuvius’ eruption.

Anthropology

The first Denisovan DNA outside Siberia unveils a long stint on the roof of the world

Genetic evidence puts Denisovans, humankind’s now-extinct cousins, on the Tibetan Plateau from 100,000 to at least 60,000 years ago.

Anthropology

Mummified llamas yield new insights into Inca ritual sacrifices

Bound and decorated llamas, found at an Inca site in southern Peru, may have been buried alive as part of events in annexed territories.

Anthropology

Homo erectus, not humans, may have invented the barbed bone point

Carved artifacts excavated from Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge suggest now-extinct hominids made barbed bone points long before humans did, researchers say.

Anthropology

How environmental changes may have helped make ancient humans more adaptable

An East African sediment core unveils ecological changes underlying a key Stone Age transition.