Anthropology News

Studies Suggest Homo naledi Walked Upright and Climbed Trees

A reconstruction of Homo naledi’s head by paleoartist John Gurche, who spent some 700 hours recreating the head from bone scans. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife. Image credit: John Gurche / Mark Thiessen / National Geographic.
Oct 7, 2015 by News Staff

Homo naledi – an extinct species of hominin whose fossil skeletons were discovered in a South African cave and introduced to the world last month – may have been uniquely adapted for both tree climbing and walking as dominant forms of movement, while also being capable of precise manual manipulation, according to two new studies published in the journal Nature Communications. A reconstruction of Homo naledi’s head by paleoartist John...

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A reconstruction of Homo naledi’s head by paleoartist John Gurche, who spent some 700 hours recreating the head from bone scans. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife. Image credit: John Gurche / Mark Thiessen / National Geographic.

Homo naledi: New Species of Human Ancestor Discovered

Sep 10, 2015 by News Staff

A large, multinational team of scientists has discovered a previously-unknown species of extinct hominin in the Rising Star cave, Cradle of Humankind,...

Paranthropus boisei. Image credit: © Roman Yevseyev.

Study: Last Common Ancestor of Humans and Apes Looked Like Gorilla or Chimpanzee

Sep 9, 2015 by News Staff

Humans split from our closest African ape relatives in the genus Pan around six to seven million years ago. We have features that clearly link us with...

Illustration of every day life in the El Portalon cave during the Neolithic and Copper Age. Image credit: Maria de la Fuente.

Ancient DNA Links Early Farmers to Basques

Sep 8, 2015 by News Staff

The Basques are not direct descendants from hunter-gatherers of 10,000 years ago; instead, they have more recent genetic links to early Iberian farmers,...

Sima de los Huesos hominins lived in what is now Spain about 400,000 years ago. Image credit: © Kennis & Kennis / Madrid Scientific Films.

Human Body Has Gone through Four Main Stages of Evolution, Scientists Say

Sep 1, 2015 by News Staff

The evolution of the human body’s size and shape has gone through four stages, says an international group of anthropologists from the United States,...

This is an artist's reconstruction of female Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia. Image credit: Elisabeth Daynes, via tabula.ge.

1.8-Million-Year-Old Modern Human-Like Hand Bone Found in Tanzania

Aug 19, 2015 by News Staff

A fossil specimen unearthed at the Philip Tobias Korongo site, Olduvai Gorge, could be the oldest ‘anatomically modern’ human hand bone, says an international...

Earth as seen on July 6, 2015 from a distance of one million miles by NASA’s EPIC camera on the DSCOVR satellite. Image credit: NOAA / NASA / U.S. Air Force.

Earth’s Population Will Reach 11 Billion by 2100, United Nations Experts Say

Aug 11, 2015 by News Staff

The world’s population, now 7.3 billion, is expected to reach the 11 billion mark by 2100, according to revised population projections released yesterday...

Native South Americans in Brazil by Giulio Ferrario, 1823-1838.

Amazonian Native Americans Share Genetic Link with Australasians, Study Shows

Jul 22, 2015 by News Staff

A new study, published in the journal Nature, shows that some Amazonian Native Americans descend partly from a Native American population that carried...

The new study shows that ancestors of Native Americans migrated to the Americas from Siberia and not directly from Europe. Painting by G. Mülzel.

Single Migration from Siberia Peopled the Americas, Scientists Say

Jul 21, 2015 by News Staff

Using ancient and modern genome-wide data, a team of researchers has found that the ancestors of all present-day Native Americans, including Athabascans...

Bronze Age DNA Gives Clues to How Modern Eurasia Was Formed

Jun 11, 2015 by News Staff

The Bronze Age was a period of major cultural changes in Europe and Central Asia. However, there is debate about whether these changes resulted from the...

Sima de los Huesos hominins lived in what is now Spain about 400,000 years ago. Image credit: © Kennis & Kennis / Madrid Scientific Films.

Sima de los Huesos Hominin Skull Shows Evidence of Earliest Known Murder

May 28, 2015 by News Staff

Wounds identified on a 430,000-year-old hominin skull from the archaeological site of Sima de los Huesos in northern Spain may indicate one of the first...

The left half of the lower jaw of Australopithecus deyiremeda. Image credit: Yohannes Haile-Selassie / Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Australopithecus deyiremeda: New Hominin Species Discovered in Ethiopia

May 27, 2015 by News Staff

A multinational group of anthropologists has described a new human ancestor species that lived in what is now the Afar region of Ethiopia about 3.3 –...

Babies are able to learn abstract relations before the first year of life. Image credit: Kang Heungbo.

Babies Can Form Abstract Relations Before They Learn Words

May 26, 2015 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the journal Child Development, infants are capable of understanding abstract relations like ‘same’ and ‘different.’ Babies...

Early farmers. Image credit: sjs.org / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Agriculture, Fall in Mobility Made Humans More ‘Domestic,’ Finds News Study

May 19, 2015 by News Staff

A new study of the bones of hundreds of humans who lived during the past 33,000 years in Europe finds the rise of agriculture and a corresponding fall...

Two Hadza men return from a hunt. The Hadza people are one of the last hunter-gatherer tribes left in Africa. Image credit: Andreas Lederer / CC BY 2.0.

New Study Provides Insight into Social Structure of Modern Hunter-Gatherer Tribes

May 15, 2015 by News Staff

According to new research published online today in the journal Science, sex equality in residential decision-making explains the unique social structure...

Denisovans were probably dark-skinned, unlike the pale Neandertals. The picture shows a Neanderthal man. Image credit: Mauro Cutrona.

Scientists Explain Why Modern Humans Have Chins

Apr 16, 2015 by News Staff

Chins of anatomically modern humans don’t come from mechanical forces such as chewing, but instead result from an evolutionary adaptation involving face...

Forensic facial reconstruction of another Australopithecus species - A. afarensis. Image credit: Cicero Moraes / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Little Foot: Australopithecus Skeleton from Sterkfontein is 3.67 Million Years Old

Apr 1, 2015 by News Staff

The new date places an almost complete skeleton of Australopithecus prometheus from the Sterkfontein cave in South Africa as an older relative of famous...

This is an artist's reconstruction of female Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia. Image credit: Elisabeth Daynes, via tabula.ge.

Early Members of Genus Homo Varied Widely in Body Size

Mar 30, 2015 by News Staff

A new study published online March 26 in the Journal of Human Evolution suggests that the genus Homo has come in different sizes since its origins over...

Mountain forest in Sri Lanka. Image credit: Faslan / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Early Foragers Thrived on ‘Rainforest Diet’ 20,000 Years Ago

Mar 13, 2015 by News Staff

According to a new study led by Patrick Roberts of the University of Oxford, UK, early human foragers relied primarily on rainforest resources from at...

LD 350-1, a partial mandible of early Homo. Image credit: Arizona State University.

LD 350-1: Oldest Known Fossil of Genus Homo Found

Mar 5, 2015 by News Staff

In two papers published in the journal Science, an international team of anthropologists reported the discovery of a partial hominin jaw with teeth from...

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