Anthropology

  1. Anthropology

    The Forager King

    A celebrated anthropologist surprises and inspires his biographer.

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  2. 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.

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  3. 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.

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  4. 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.

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  5. 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.

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  6. Anthropology

    Ancestral split in Africa, China

    Environmental conditions may have encouraged Homo erectus to develop a level of social and tool-making complexity in Africa that the same species did not achieve in China.

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  7. Anthropology

    Wari skulls create trophy-head mystery

    A 1,000-year-old Peruvian site has yielded the remains of decapitated human heads that were used as ritual trophies but, to the researchers surprise, did not come from enemy warriors.

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  8. Anthropology

    Jaw-dropping find emerges from Stone Age cave

    A nearly complete lower jaw discovered in a Romanian cave last year and dating to around 35,000 years ago may represent the oldest known example of anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Europe.

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  9. Anthropology

    Ancestral Bushwhack: Hominid tree gets trimmed twice

    In separate presentations at scientific meetings, two anthropologists challenged the influential view that the human evolutionary family has contained as many as 20 different fossil species.

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  10. Anthropology

    Cannibalism’s DNA Trail: Gene may signal ancient prion-disease outbreaks

    Cannibalism among prehistoric humans may have left lasting genetic marks.

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  11. Anthropology

    The Stone Masters

    Investigations of modern-day expert and novice craftsmen of stone tools and decorative stone beads offer insights into the making of stone implements thousands and perhaps even millions of years ago.

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  12. Anthropology

    Ancient people get dated Down Under

    New dating analyses indicate that people reached southeastern Australia between 50,000 and 46,000 years ago and that two human skeletons previously unearthed there were buried about 40,000 years ago.

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