Anthropology

Archaeology

‘Origin’ explores the controversial science of the first Americans

A new book looks at how genetics has affected the study of humans’ arrival in the Americas and sparked conflicts with Indigenous groups today.

Anthropology

Homo sapiens bones in East Africa are at least 36,000 years older than once thought

Analyses of remnants of a volcanic blast push the age of East Africa’s oldest known H. sapiens fossils at Ethiopia’s Omo site to 233,000 years or more.

Archaeology

Clovis hunters’ reputation as mammoth killers takes a hit

Early Americans’ stone points were best suited to butchering the huge beasts’ carcasses, scientists contend.

Archaeology

Neandertals were the first hominids to turn forest into grassland 125,000 years ago

Neandertals’ campfires, hunting and other activities altered the land over 2,000 years, making them the first known hominids to impact their environs.

Anthropology

2021 research reinforced that mating across groups drove human evolution

Fossils and DNA point to mixing and mingling among Homo groups across vast areas.

Anthropology

Ancient footprints suggest a mysterious hominid lived alongside Lucy’s kind

A previously unknown hominid species may have left its marks in muddy ash about 3.66 million years ago in what is now East Africa.

Anthropology

Ancient giant orangutans evolved smaller bodies surprisingly slowly

Fossil teeth from Chinese caves indicate that a single, ancient orangutan species gradually trimmed down over nearly 2 million years.

Anthropology

‘The Dawn of Everything’ rewrites 40,000 years of human history

A new book recasts human social evolution as multiple experiments with freedom and domination that started in the Stone Age.

Anthropology

A child’s partial skull adds to the mystery of how Homo naledi treated the dead

The isolated discovery of a Homo naledi child’s skull fragments and teeth plays into idea that small-brained species ritually placed the dead in caves.

Humans

Ancient human visitors complicate the Falkland Islands wolf’s origin story

Scientists have debated how the Falkland Islands’ only land mammal journeyed to the region: by a long-ago land bridge or with people.

Genetics

DNA from mysterious Asian mummies reveals their surprising ancestry

Ancient DNA indicates that an enigmatic Bronze Age group consisted of genetic, but not cultural, loners.

Anthropology

Lasers reveal construction inspired by ancient Mexican pyramids in Maya ruins

Archaeologists have uncovered structures in Guatemala that are remarkably similar to La Ciudadela and its temple at the ancient city of Teotihuacan.