Anthropology
- Humans
The medieval Catholic Church may have helped spark Western individualism
Early Catholic Church decrees transformed families and may help explain why Western societies today tend to be individualistic and nonconformist.
- Humans
Fossils suggest tree-dwelling apes walked upright long before hominids did
A partial skeleton from an 11.6-million-year-old European ape still doesn’t answer how hominids adopted a two-legged gait.
- Archaeology
A toe bone hints that Neandertals used eagle talons as jewelry
An ancient eagle toe bone elevates the case for the use of symbolic bird-of-prey pendants among Neandertals, researchers say.
- Humans
Quarrying stone for Easter Island statues made soil more fertile for farming
Easter Island’s Polynesian society grew crops in soil made especially fertile by the quarrying of rock for large, humanlike statues, a study suggests.
- Humans
Ancient DNA reveals the first glimpse of what a Denisovan may have looked like
A controversial technique reconstructs a teenage Denisovan’s physical appearance from genetics.
- Humans
An island grave site hints at far-flung ties among ancient Americans
Great Lakes and southeastern coastal hunter-gatherers had direct contact around 4,000 years ago, a study suggests.
- Humans
Culture helps shape when babies learn to walk
The culture in which a baby is raised can accelerate or slow down the development of early motor skills. Does it matter?
- Humans
DNA indicates how ancient migrations shaped South Asian languages and farming
Farming in the region may have sprung up locally, while herders from afar sparked language changes.
- Anthropology
This ancient Denisovan finger bone is surprisingly humanlike
Despite Neandertal ties, extinct hominids called Denisovans had a touching link to humans, a new study finds.
- Humans
A 3.8-million-year-old skull reveals the face of Lucy’s possible ancestors
A fossilized hominid skull found in an Ethiopian desert illuminates the earliest-known Australopithecus species.
- Anthropology
A tiny skull fossil suggests primate brain areas evolved separately
Digital reconstruction of a fossilized primate skull reveals that odor and vision areas developed independently starting 20 million years ago or more.
- Humans
India’s Skeleton Lake contains the bones of mysterious European migrants
Not all of the hundreds of skeletons found at a north Indian lake are from the same place or period. What killed any of these people is still unknown.
