Anthropology

Anthropology

Mysterious Migrations

Controversial new studies report that modern humans from Africa launched cultural advances in Europe at least 36,000 years ago and reached what's now western Russia more than 40,000 years ago.

Anthropology

Ancient Slow Growth: Fossil teeth show roots of human development

An extended period of childhood evolved in people at least 160,000 years ago.

Anthropology

Tools for Prey: Female chimps move to fore in hunting

For the first time, researchers have observed wild chimpanzees making and using tools to hunt other animals, a practice adopted mainly by adult females and youngsters.

Anthropology

New age for ancient Americans

New radiocarbon dates indicate that the Clovis people, long considered the first well-documented settlers of the New World, inhabited North America considerably later and for a much shorter time than previously thought.

Anthropology

Chimpanzee Stone Age: Finds in Africa rock prehistory of tools

Researchers have uncovered evidence of a chimpanzee stone age that started at least 4,300 years ago in West Africa.

Anthropology

Neandertals’ tough Stone Age lives

Neandertals that 43,000 years ago inhabited what's now northern Spain faced periodic food shortages and possibly resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Anthropology

South African find gets younger

The partial skeleton of a human ancestor previously found in South Africa dates to about 2.2 million years ago, roughly 1 million years younger than the original estimates.

Anthropology

Stone Age Role Revolution: Modern humans may have divided labor to conquer

A new analysis of Stone Age sites indicates that a division of labor first emerged in modern-human groups living in the African tropics around 40,000 years ago, providing our ancestors with a social advantage over Neandertals.

Anthropology

Ancient Gene Yield: New methods retrieve Neandertals’ DNA

Researchers have retrieved and analyzed a huge chunk of Neandertal DNA.

Anthropology

Evolution’s Mystery Woman

A heated debate has broken out among anthropologists over whether a highly publicized partial skeleton initially attributed to a new, tiny species of human cousins actually comes from a pygmy Homo sapiens with a developmental disorder.

Anthropology

Evolution’s Child: Fossil puts youthful twist on Lucy’s kind

Researchers have announced the discovery of the oldest and most complete fossil child in our evolutionary family yet found.

Anthropology

Neandertal debate goes south

A controversial report concludes that Neandertals lived on southwestern Europe's Iberian coast until 24,000 years ago, sharing the area for several thousand years with modern humans before dying out.