Anthropology

Anthropology

Temples of Boom: Ancient Hawaiians took fast road to statehood

A boom in temple construction on two Hawaiian islands around 400 years ago marked the surprisingly rapid formation of an early political state.

Anthropology

Suddenly Civilized: New finds push back Americas’ first society

The earliest known civilization in the Americas appears to have emerged about 5,000 years ago in what's now Peru.

Anthropology

Fossil ape makes evolutionary debut

Newly discovered fossils from an ape that lived in what's now northeastern Spain around 13 million years ago may hold clues to the evolutionary roots of living apes and people.

Anthropology

Apes, monkeys split earlier than fossils had indicated

A new genetic analysis pushes back the estimated time at which ancient lineages of monkeys and apes diverged to between 29 million and 34.5 million years ago, at least 4 million years earlier than previously thought.

Anthropology

Remnants of the Past

Sophisticated analyses suggest that some prehistoric peoples were highly skilled weavers.

Anthropology

South American Surprise: Ancient farmers settled in Uruguay’s wetlands

The discovery of a 4,200-year-old farming settlement in Uruguay challenges traditional notions of where early South American societies took root.

Anthropology

Evolutionary Shrinkage: Stone Age Homo find offers small surprise

Scientists announced the discovery of the partial skeleton of a small-bodied Homo species that inhabited an eastern Indonesian island from at least 38,000 years ago until about 18,000 years ago.

Anthropology

Chimps show skill in termite fishing

Video cameras set up in a central-African forest have recorded the sophisticated ways in which local chimpanzees catch termites for eating.

Anthropology

Evolution’s Buggy Ride: Lice leap boldly into human-origins fray

A controversial genetic analysis of lice raises the possibility that some type of physical contact occurred between ancient humans and Homo erectus, probably in eastern Asia between 50,000 and 25,000 years ago.

Anthropology

Ancient head case

A 1.8-million-year-old Homo erectus skullcap came from a 1-year-old child whose brain grew at a rate more like that of chimpanzees than of people.

Anthropology

Human ancestor gets leg up on walking

A new analysis of a 6-million-year-old leg fossil from a member of the human evolutionary family indicates that this individual walked upright with nearly the same deftness as people today do.

Anthropology

In the Neandertal Mind

Neandertals possessed much the same mental capacity as ancient people did, but a genetically inspired memory boost toward the end of the Stone Age may have allowed Homo sapiens to prosper while Neandertals died out.