Anthropology News

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...

The Maya city of Palenque in modern-day Mexico. Image credit: Peter Andersen / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Ancient Human Settlements Grew Same Way as Modern Cities Do, Scientists Say

Feb 21, 2015 by News Staff

A new study published in the journal Science Advances strengthens the view that human settlements of all times and places function in the same way by manifesting...

Various views of the Manot skull fossil. Image credit: Israel Hershkovitz et al.

55,000-Year-Old Skull Fossil Sheds New Light on Human Migration out of Africa

Jan 29, 2015 by News Staff

A human skull fragment recently unearthed at Manot Cave in Israel provides strong evidence that both anatomically modern Homo sapiens and Neanderthals...

Australopithecus africanus. Image credit: J.M Salas / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Australopithecus africanus, Other Early Hominins May Have Made, Used Stone Tools

Jan 23, 2015 by News Staff

A team of scientists led by Dr Tracy Kivell of the University of Kent and University College London has found strong evidence for stone tool use among...

Anthropocene: New Geological Epoch Began on July 16, 1945

Jan 16, 2015 by News Staff

Climate change, the loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, and altered biogeochemical cycles like phosphorus and nitrogen runoff have all passed...

New research shows that, while human hunter-gatherers from around 7,000 years ago had bones comparable in strength to modern orangutans, farmers from the same area over 6,000 years later had significantly lighter and weaker bones that would have been more susceptible to breaking. Image credit: Alabama Cooperative Extension System / A&M University / Auburn University.

Shift from Foraging to Farming Led to Fragile, Lightweight Human Skeletons

Dec 24, 2014 by News Staff

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that modern human skeletons have become much lighter and more fragile...

Fifteen moais of Ahu Tongariki. Image credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Early Inhabitants of Easter Island Thrived on Sweet Potato Diet

Dec 17, 2014 by News Staff

Ancient Easter Islanders had a diet of mostly sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) before European contact, according to researchers Dr John Dudgeon from Idaho...

A model of a Neanderthal man in modern clothing. Image credit: H. Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Homo neanderthalensis: Neanderthals Represent Separate Human Species

Nov 19, 2014 by News Staff

According to a new study that analyzed different aspects of the nasal complex in Neanderthals and other later Pleistocene fossils from Europe and Africa,...

This image shows stone tools found at the site of Nor Geghi, Armenia: top - biface tool; bottom - a Levallois core. Image credit: © Dan Adler.

Stone Tool Discovery in Armenia Gives Insight into Human Innovation 325,000 Years Ago

Sep 27, 2014 by News Staff

An analysis of about 3,000 stone tools from a 325,000-year-old archaeological site near the village of Nor Geghi in the Kotayk Province of Armenia challenges...

The top panel shows total world population projected to 2100; dotted lines are the range or error using the older scenario method, while shaded regions are the uncertainties using statistical methods; the darker shading is the 80 % confidence bars, and the lighter shading shows the 95 % confidence bars; at the bottom are the population projections for each continent. Image credit: Adrian Raftery / University of Washington.

Earth’s Population Could Reach 12.3 Billion by 2100, Scientists Say

Sep 19, 2014 by News Staff

A team of researchers led by Dr John Wilmoth of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs announced yesterday in the journal Science that, according...

A Sami indigenous northern European family in Norway around 1900. The picture was probably taken in 1896 around the Kanstadfjord near Lødingen, Nordland. The adults on the left are Ingrid (born Sarri) and her husband Nils Andersen Inga. In front of the parents are Berit and Ole Nilsen. The lady on the right is Ellen, sister of Ingrid. In front of Ellen are the children Inger Anna and Tomas. The children of Inger Anna are reindeer herders still today. Detroit Publishing Co. print no. 7123.

Europeans Descended from 3 Groups of Ancient Humans, Study Reveals

Sep 18, 2014 by News Staff

Modern Europeans are the descendants of at least three groups of ancient humans, not two as was previously thought, reveals a comparative analysis of DNA...