Anthropology
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Anthropology
Sail Away: Tools reveal extent of ancient Polynesian trips
Rock from Hawaii was fashioned into a stone tool found in Polynesian islands more than 4,000 kilometers to the south, indicating that canoeists made the sea journey around 1,000 years ago.
By Bruce Bower -
Anthropology
Walking Small: Humanlike legs took Homo out of Africa
Newly discovered fossils, 1.77 million years old, show that the earliest known human ancestors to leave Africa for Asia possessed humanlike legs, feet, and spines, but strikingly small brains and primitive arms.
By Bruce Bower -
Anthropology
Advantage: Starch
An enhanced ability to digest starch may have given early humans an evolutionary advantage over their ape relatives.
By Brian Vastag -
Anthropology
Men’s fertile role in evolving long lives
The ability of men 55 and older to father children may have had evolutionary effects that caused both sexes to develop longer lifespans.
By Bruce Bower -
Anthropology
Red-Ape Stroll
Wild orangutans regularly walk upright through the trees, raising the controversial possibility that the two-legged stance is not unique to hominids.
By Bruce Bower -
Anthropology
Ape Aid: Chimps share altruistic capacity with people
Chimpanzees, as well as 18-month-old children, will assist strangers even when getting no personal reward, suggesting that human altruism has deep evolutionary roots.
By Bruce Bower -
Anthropology
Chicken of the Sea: Poultry may have reached Americas via Polynesia
Polynesians may have traveled back and forth to South America more than 600 years ago, introducing chickens to the Americas in the process.
By Bruce Bower -
Anthropology
When female chimps become baby killers
Although long thought to be rare, instances in which female chimps band together to kill other females' infants occur fairly regularly under certain circumstances.
By Bruce Bower -
Anthropology
Kin play limited role in chimp cooperation
Male chimps collaborate in a variety of ways and, like people, often find partners outside of their immediate families for cooperative ventures.
By Bruce Bower -
Anthropology
Children of Prehistory
Accumulating evidence suggests that children and teenagers produced much prehistoric cave art and perhaps left behind many fledgling attempts at stone-tool making as well.
By Bruce Bower -
Anthropology
Disinherited Ancestor: Lucy’s kind may occupy evolutionary side branch
A controversial analysis of a recently discovered jaw from a 3-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis puts Lucy's species on an evolutionary side branch that eventually died out.
By Bruce Bower -
Anthropology
Asian Trek: Fossil puts ancient humans in Far East
A 40,000-year-old partial human skeleton from a Chinese cave intensifies a debate over whether Stone Age people dispersing from Africa interbred with humanlike species that they encountered.
By Bruce Bower