Early Humans News

April 19, 2024

Top Headlines

Interspecies Competition Led to Even More Forms of Ancient Human -- Defying Evolutionary Trends in Vertebrates

Apr. 17, 2024 — Competition between species played a major role in the rise and fall of hominins -- and produced a 'bizarre' evolutionary pattern for the Homo lineage -- according to a new study that revises the ...

Evolution's Recipe Book: How 'Copy Paste' Errors Cooked Up the Animal Kingdom

Apr. 15, 2024 — A series of whole genome and gene duplication events that go back hundreds of millions of years have laid the foundations for tissue-specific gene expression, according to a new study. The ...

When Did the Chicken Cross the Road? New Evidence from Central Asia

Apr. 2, 2024 — An international team of scholars present the earliest clear archaeological and biomolecular evidence for the raising of chickens for egg production, based on material from 12 archaeological sites spanning one and a half millennia. The research ...

DNA Study IDs Descendants of George Washington from Unmarked Remains, Findings to Aid Service Member IDs Going Back to World War II

Mar. 28, 2024 — New DNA sequencing technologies have identified the historical remains of George Washington's grandnephews, Samuel Walter Washington and George Steptoe Washington Jr., and their mother, Lucy Payne ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:54pm EDT

Genetic Variant Identified That Shaped the Human Skull Base

Apr. 17, 2024 — Researchers have identified a variant in the gene TBX1 as key in the development of the unique morphology at the base of the skull. TBX1 is present at higher levels in humans than in closely related ...

Persian Plateau Unveiled as Crucial Hub for Early Human Migration out of Africa

Mar. 25, 2024 — A new study combining genetic, palaeoecological, and archaeological evidence has unveiled the Persian Plateau as a pivotal geographic location ...

Did Neanderthals Use Glue? Researchers Find Evidence That Sticks

Feb. 21, 2024 — Neanderthals created stone tools held together by a multi-component adhesive, a team of scientists has discovered. Its findings, which are the earliest evidence of a complex adhesive in Europe, ...

Some Pre-Roman Humans Were Buried With Dogs, Horses and Other Animals

Feb. 14, 2024 — Some people from an ancient community in what is now northern Italy were interred with animals and animal parts from species such as dogs, horses and pigs. The reasons remain mysterious, but might ...

Vittrup Man Crossed Over from Forager to Farmer Before Being Sacrificed in Denmark

Feb. 14, 2024 — Vittrup Man was born along the Scandinavian coast before moving to Denmark, where he was later sacrificed, according to a new ...

Great Apes Playfully Tease Each Other

Feb. 13, 2024 — Babies playfully tease others as young as eight months of age. Since language is not required for this behavior, similar kinds of playful teasing might be present in non-human animals. Now cognitive ...

Innovation in Stone Tool Technology Involved Multiple Stages at the Time of Modern Human Dispersals

Feb. 7, 2024 — A new study illuminates the cultural evolution that took place approximately 50,000 to 40,000 years ago, coinciding with the dispersals of Homo ...

Thailand's Iron Age Log Coffin Culture

Feb. 6, 2024 — A mortuary practice known as Log Coffin culture characterizes the Iron Age of highland Pang Mapha in northwestern Thailand. Between 2,300 and 1,000 years ago, individuals were buried in large wooden ...

Neanderthals and Humans Lived Side by Side in Northern Europe 45,000 Years Ago

Jan. 31, 2024 — Archaeologists have debated whether Neanderthals or modern humans made stone tools that are found at sites across northern Europe and date from about ...

How Did Humans Learn to Walk? New Evolutionary Study Offers an Earful

Jan. 29, 2024 — A new study, which centers on evidence from skulls of a 6-million-year-old fossil ape, Lufengpithecus, offers important clues about the origins of bipedal locomotion courtesy of a novel method: ...

An Evolutionary Mystery 125 Million Years in the Making

Mar. 4, 2024 — Plant biologists have uncovered an evolutionary mystery over 100 million years in the making. It turns out that sometime during the last 125 million years, tomatoes and Arabidopsis thaliana plants ...

Scientists ID Burned Bodies Using Technique Used for Extracting DNA from Woolly Mammoths, Neanderthals

Feb. 29, 2024 — A technique originally devised to extract DNA from woolly mammoths and other ancient archaeological specimens can be used to potentially identify badly burned human remains, according to ...

AI Provides More Accurate Analysis of Prehistoric and Modern Animals, Painting Picture of Ancient World

Dec. 14, 2023 — A new study of the remains of prehistoric and modern African antelopes found that AI technology accurately identified animals more than 90% of the time compared to humans, who had much lower accuracy ...

Paleolithic Humans May Have Understood the Properties of Rocks for Making Stone Tools

Dec. 1, 2023 — Research suggests that Paleolithic humans in the Middle East selected flint for their cutting tools based on differences in the mechanical properties of the rock. They seem to have purposefully ...

A Mixed Origin Made Maize Successful

Nov. 30, 2023 — Maize is one of the world's most widely grown crops. It is used for both human and animal foods and holds great cultural significance, especially for indigenous peoples in the Americas. Yet ...

Dishing the Dirt on Human Evolution: Why Scientific Techniques Matter in Archaeology

Nov. 30, 2023 — Scientists should seek answers hidden in the dirt using proven and state-of-the-art archaeological science techniques to support new discoveries about human evolution following recent controversies ...

Unknown Animals Were Leaving Bird-Like Footprints in Late Triassic Southern Africa

Nov. 29, 2023 — Ancient animals were walking around on bird-like feet over 210 million years ago, according to a new ...

Neanderthals Were the World's First Artists, Research Reveals

Nov. 21, 2023 — Recent research has shown that engravings in a cave in La Roche-Cotard (France), which has been sealed for thousands of years, were actually made by Neanderthals. The findings reveal that the ...

Looking for 'LUCA' and the Timing of Cellular Evolution

Nov. 21, 2023 — LUCA, the 'last universal common ancestor' of all living organisms, lived 4.32 to at most 4.52 billion years ago. What LUCA looked like is unknown, but it must have been a cell with among ...

Evolution of Taste: Early Sharks Were Able to Perceive Bitter Substances

Nov. 13, 2023 — New genetic data show that humans and sharks share bitter taste receptors, even though their evolutionary pathways separated nearly 500 million years ...

No Scientific Evidence for Cognitively Advanced Behaviors and Symbolism by Homo Naledi

Nov. 13, 2023 — A new study casts doubt on claims that Homo naledi, a small-brained hominin dating to between 335-241,000 years ago, deliberately buried their dead and produced rock art in Rising Star Cave, South ...

New Research Exposes Early Humans' Ecological Versatility

Nov. 9, 2023 — A recent study sheds new light on the ecological adaptability of early humans at the time when they first expanded their range outside Africa, 2--1 million years ...

Head Lice Evolution Mirrors Human Migration and Colonization in the Americas

Nov. 8, 2023 — A new analysis of lice genetic diversity suggests that lice came to the Americas twice -- once during the first wave of human migration across the Bering Strait, and again during European ...

Fossils Tell Tale of Last Primate to Inhabit North America Before Humans

Nov. 6, 2023 — Paleontologists have shed light on the long-standing saga of Ekgmowechashala, based on fossil teeth and jaws found in both Nebraska and China. Ekgmowechashala is the last primate found in the fossil ...

The Genetic Heritage of the Denisovans May Have Left Its Mark on Our Mental Health

Oct. 30, 2023 — A research team has identified the most widespread genetic contribution by Denisovans to date. The study reveals that the genetic variant observed, which affects zinc regulation, could have signified ...

Origin of Ancient Mummified Baboons Found in Egypt

Oct. 24, 2023 — Primatologists are using genetic analysis to determine the geographic origin of ancient mummified baboons found in Egypt. The team finds evidence that the two legendary trading regions of Punt and ...

Challenging Prehistoric Gender Roles: Research Finds That Women Were Hunters, Too

Oct. 20, 2023 — Anthropologists challenge the traditional view of men as hunters and women as gatherers in prehistoric times. Their research reveals evidence of gender equality in roles and suggests that women were ...

The Encounter Between Neanderthals and Sapiens as Told by Their Genomes

Oct. 18, 2023 — About 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals, who had lived for hundreds of thousands of years in the western part of the Eurasian continent, gave way to Homo sapiens, who had arrived from Africa. This ...

Extinct Ape Gets a Facelift, 12 Million Years Later

Oct. 16, 2023 — A new study has reconstructed the well-preserved but damaged skull of a great ape species that lived about 12 million years ago. The species, Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, may be crucial to ...

Neanderthal Gene Variants Associated With Greater Pain Sensitivity

Oct. 10, 2023 — People who carry three gene variants that have been inherited from Neanderthals are more sensitive to some types of pain, according to a new ...