Anthropology
- Life
Neandertal genes point to interbreeding, inbreeding
DNA from 50,000 years ago underscores modest levels of mating across hominid populations.
- Animals
China trumps Near East for signs of most ancient farm cats
Earliest evidence found for grain as a force in feline domestication.
- Archaeology
Easter Island’s farmers cultivated social resilience, not collapse
A Polynesian society often presumed to have self-destructed shows signs of having carried on instead.
- Anthropology
Ancient hominid bone serves up DNA stunner
Spanish hominid fossil from 400,000 years ago reveals genetic ties to Asia’s mysterious Denisovans.
- Anthropology
Little Red Riding Hood gets an evolutionary makeover
A statistical analysis attempts to track the rise of several widespread folktales.
- Anthropology
Human ancestors threw stone-tipped spears at prey
African discoveries show that hunting weapons thrown from a distance appeared by 279,000 years ago.
- Anthropology
Hunting boosts lizard numbers in Australian desert
Reptiles prefer to live in places aboriginal people have burned.
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- Anthropology
Fossil skull points to single root for human evolution
New find suggests that humankind’s origins trace to an ancient species that spread from Africa to Asia.
- Science & Society
Scarcity
Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir explain why having too little means so much.
- Anthropology
Neandertals ate stomach goop, and you can too
Eating partially digested stomach contents, or chyme, has long been a nutritional boost.
- Anthropology
Ancient farmers, foragers kept genes to themselves
Ancient DNA and diet clues suggest how farmers and hunter-gathers contributed to modern Europeans’ genetic profiles.
