Anthropology

Anthropology

Polynesian Latecomers: Easter Islanders took fast track to culture

New radiocarbon dates from Easter Island indicate that the isolated Polynesian island was first colonized around A.D. 1200, up to 800 years later than had previously been thought.

Anthropology

Big Woman with a Distant Past: Stone Age gal embodies humanity’s cold shifts

A 260,000-year-old partial skeleton previously found in China represents the largest known female among human ancestors and underscores the ancient origins of large, broad bodies adapted for survival in cold conditions.

Anthropology

India cultivated homegrown farmers

A new analysis of Y chromosome structure supports the view that around 10,000 years ago, people living in what's now India took up farming rather than giving way to foreigners who brought agriculture into South Asia.

Anthropology

Stone Age Footwork: Ancient human prints turn up down under

An ancient, dried-up lakeshore in Australia has yielded the largest known collection of Stone Age footprints, made about 20,000 years ago.

Anthropology

European face-off for early farmers

A new analysis of modern and ancient human skulls supports the idea that early farmers in the Middle East spread into Europe between 11,000 and 6,500 years ago, intermarried with people there, and passed on their agricultural way of life to the native Europeans.

Anthropology

The Pirahã Challenge

A linguist has sparked controversy with his proposal that a tribe of about 200 people living in Brazil's Amazon rain forest speaks a language devoid of counting and color terms, clauses, and other elements of grammar often considered to be universal.

Anthropology

Waves of Grain: New data lift old model of agriculture’s origins

A new analysis of the locations and ages of ancient farming sites reinforces the controversial idea that the groups that started raising crops in the Middle East gradually grew in number and colonized much of Europe.

Anthropology

Gone with the Flow: Ancient Andes canals irrigated farmland

Excavations in the Andes mountains have unearthed the earliest known irrigation canals in South America.

Anthropology

Chimps indifferent to others’ welfare

New laboratory experiments suggest that chimpanzees, unlike people, don't care about the welfare of unrelated members of their social groups.

Anthropology

Encore for Evolutionary Small-Timers: Tiny human cousins get younger with new finds

Excavations in an Indonesian cave have yielded more fossils of short, upright creatures that lived as recently as 12,000 years ago.

Anthropology

Wild gorillas take time for tool use

Gorillas that balance on walking sticks and trudge across makeshift bridges have provided the first evidence of tool use among these creatures in the wild.

Anthropology

Genes tied to recent brain evolution

Two genes already known to influence brain size have undergone relatively recent, survival-enhancing modifications in people and appear to be still evolving.