Anthropology
- Anthropology
Stone Age Code Red: Scarlet symbols emerge in Israeli cave
Lumps of red ocher excavated near human graves in an Israeli cave indicate that symbolic thinking occurred at least 90,000 years ago, much earlier than archaeologists have traditionally assumed.
- Anthropology
Erectus Ahoy
A researcher who explores the nautical abilities of Stone Age people by building rafts and having crews row them across stretches of ocean contends that language and other cognitive advances emerged 900,000 years ago with Homo erectus, not considerably later among modern humans, as is usually assumed.
- Anthropology
Y Trail of the First Americans: DNA data point to late New World entry
Scientists identified a gene variant on the Y chromosome that allowed them to estimate that people first reached the Americas no earlier than about 18,000 years ago.
- Anthropology
Continental Survivors: Baja skulls shake up American ancestry
Members of a foraging group that lived on Mexico's Baja peninsula around 600 years ago were direct descendants of America's first settlers, who arrived on the continent at least 12,000 years ago.
- Anthropology
New World Newcomers: Men’s DNA supports recent settlement of the Americas
New data on genetic differences among the Y chromosomes of Asian and Native American men support the notion that people first reached the Americas less than 20,000 years ago.
- Anthropology
Lucy’s kind takes humanlike turn
A new analysis of fossils from a more than 3-million-year-old species in the human evolutionary family reveals that the males were only moderately larger than the females, a finding that has implications for ancient social behavior.
- Anthropology
The Ultimate Colonists
Human ancestors managed to adjust to life in a variety of ecosystems during the Stone Age, indicating that their social lives were more complex than they've often been given credit for.
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- Anthropology
New Guinea Went Bananas: Agriculture’s roots get a South Pacific twist
Inhabitants of New Guinea began to cultivate bananas in large quantities nearly 7,000 years ago, an agricultural practice that spread to Southeast Asia and throughout the Pacific region.
- Anthropology
African Legacy: Fossils plug gap in human origins
Scientists who discovered three partial Homo sapiens skulls in Ethiopia that date to nearly 160,000 years ago say that the finds document humanity's evolution in Africa, independently of European Neandertals.
- Anthropology
Humanity’s pedestal lowered again?
A new genetic study reaches the controversial conclusion that chimpanzees belong to the genus Homo, just as people do.
- Anthropology
Stone Age Genetics: Ancient DNA enters humanity’s heritage
Genetic material extracted from the bones of European Stone Age Homo sapiens, sometimes called Cro-Magnons, bolsters the theory that people evolved independently of Neandertals.
