Anthropology

Anthropology

Isotopes reveal sources of ancient timbers

Isotopic analysis of architectural timbers from ancient dwellings in the U.S. Southwest has shown from which distant forests the massive logs came.

Anthropology

Neandertals show ancient signs of caring

A partial jaw unearthed in France indicates that Neandertals extensively cared for sick and infirm comrades beginning nearly 200,000 years ago.

Anthropology

Earliest Ancestor Emerges in Africa

Scientists have found 5.2- to 5.8-million-year-old fossils in Ethiopia that represent the earliest known members of the human evolutionary family.

Anthropology

Human fossils tell a fish tale

Fossil clues indicate that Stone Age humans ate a considerable amount of seafood, giving them a broader and more resilient diet than that of Neandertals.

Anthropology

Early agriculture flowered in Mexico

Mexico may have served as a center of early plant domestication in the Americas, according to researchers who have excavated a site near Mexico's Gulf Coast.

Anthropology

Evolution’s Youth Movement

The fossils of ancient children may provide insights into the evolution of modern Homo sapiens.

Anthropology

Peru Holds Oldest New World City

Construction of massive ceremonial buildings and residential areas at a Peruvian site began 4,000 years ago, making it the earliest known city in the Americas.

Anthropology

Human ancestors made ancient entry to Java

Layers of hardened volcanic ash on the Indonesian island of Java have yielded evidence that Homo erectus reached eastern Asia by 1.5 million years ago and remained there until about 1 million years ago.

Anthropology

. . . and then takes some lumps

The skeletal diversity that many scientists use to divide up fossil species in our evolutionary past masks a genetic unity that actually encompassed relatively few species, contend researchers in an opposing camp.

Anthropology

Our family tree does the splits…

Large-scale changes in climate and habitats may have sparked the evolution of many new animal species in Africa beginning 7 million to 5 million years ago, including a string of new species in the human evolutionary family.

Anthropology

Early Brazilians Unveil African Look

Prehistoric human skulls found in Brazil share some traits with modern Africans, leading a Brazilian scientist to theorize that Africans rather than Asians first arrived in the Americas sometime before 11,000 years ago.

Anthropology

Fossil Skull Diversifies Family Tree

A 3.5-million-year-old skull found in Kenya represents a group of species in the human evolutionary family that evolved separately from australopithecines such as Lucy's kind in Ethiopia.