Anthropology

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.

Anthropology

Chimps to People: Apes show contrasts in genetic makeup

The first comparison of the chimpanzee genome to that of people has revealed new DNA disparities between ourselves and the primate species most closely related to us.

Anthropology

A Seasoned Ancient State: Chinese site adds salt to civilization’s rise

Analyses of remains from an ancient Chinese site situated along a river indicate that salt making occurred there as long as 4,000 years ago.

Anthropology

Reservoirs of Evolution: Rainy periods linked to human origins in Africa

Three phases of heavy rainfall in eastern Africa between 2.7 million and 900,000 years ago created deep lakes and might have played a critical role in the evolution of human ancestors.

Anthropology

The Human Wave

Anatomically modern people evolved in small groups of ancient Homo sapiens that never traveled too far but continually interbred with nearby groups, including other Homo species, creating a genetic wave that moved from Africa across Asia, a new model suggests.

Anthropology

People fired up Aussie extinctions

Early Australian settlers may have altered the continent's landscape around 50,000 years ago, leading to the extinction of many animal species.