Stone tools reflect three waves of migration of the earliest Homo sapiens into Europe It was long thought that modern humans first ventured into Europe about 42,000 years ago, but newly analyzed tools from the Stone Age have upended this idea. Now, evidence suggests that modern humans trekked into Europe in three waves between 54,000 … Read more
Teeth of the Red Lady: Ancient Oral Microbes Reconstructed and Their Chemical Creations Revealed About 19,000 years ago, a woman died in northern Spain. Her body was deliberately buried with pieces of the natural pigment ochre and placed behind a block of limestone in a cave known as El Mirón. When her ochre-dyed bones were … Read more
Southern Spain’s Nerja Cave Reveals Over 40,000 Years of Continuous Human Visits and Palaeolithic Art A cave in southern Spain has been continuously visited by humans for over 40,000 years, new research has revealed. After analyzing charcoal and soot left by the torches that have lit the cavern since time immemorial, the study authors confirmed … Read more
Oldest Human Discovered: Facial Reconstruction of Ancient Egyptian Who Lived 30,000 Years Ago Uncovered A lifelike facial approximation of a man who lived 30,000 years ago in what is now Egypt may offer clues about human evolution. In 1980, archaeologists unearthed the man’s skeletal remains at Nazlet Khater 2, an archaeological site in Egypt’s Nile … Read more
Exploring Neanderthal Occupation and Resource Exploitation: A Spatial Analysis of Navalmaíllo Rock Shelter Site Abel Moclán, a predoctoral researcher attached to the Universidad de Burgos (UBU), the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), and the Institute of Evolution in Africa (IDEA), is the lead author of a paper published in the journal Archaeological … Read more
Ancient DNA puts a face on the mysterious Denisovans, extinct cousins of Neanderthals Researchers have been able to bring the now-extinct cousins of Homo sapiens, the Denisovans, back to life (of sorts)—offering us the first glimpse at what these little-understood hominids would have looked like tens of thousands of years after they went extinct. Up … Read more
7.2-million-year-old pre-human fossils challenge modern human evolution theory The first hominin species, a line that eventually leads to humans, may have emerged in Europe 7.2 million years ago and not Africa—the most widely accepted starting point for our ancestors. An international team of scientists has presented two studies that suggest the divergence point between chimpanzees … Read more
Scientists discover remains of Hobbit human that stood only 3ft high and lived 700,000 years ago in Indonesia An international team of researchers has just announced the discovery of 700,000-year-old remains that are related to a tiny species of human ancestors, lovingly referred to as ‘hobbits’. Found on an island in Indonesia, the newly found … Read more
The Origin of Blue Eyes: Scientists Trace Back to a Single Ancestor 6,000-10,000 Years Ago People with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor, according to new research. A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. The mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Before then, there … Read more