Paleoanthropology News

Graecopithecus May Have Been Partially Bipedal, New Fossil Suggests

Graecopithecus freybergi lived 7.2 million years ago in the dust-laden savannah of the Athens Basin. This view from Graecopithecus freybergi’s place of discovery, Pyrgos Vassilissis, to the southeast over the plain of Athens and under a reddish cloud of Sahara dust; in the background: Mount Hymettos and Mount Lykabettos. Image credit: Velizar Simeonovski.
Mar 5, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

A 7.2-million-year-old thigh bone unearthed at the fossil site of Azmaka in southern Bulgaria displays a mosaic of features suggesting a unique combination of locomotor capabilities, including aspects of terrestrial quadrupedalism and bipedalism, according to a research team led by Professor Madelaine Böhme from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen. The paleoanthropologists have tentatively...

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The occasional use of stone tools as ‘strike-a-lights’ was a technocultural feature shared among Neanderthals in France.

Neolithic Europeans Had Surprisingly Complex Cuisine, Archaeologists Say

Mar 5, 2026 by News Staff

An international team of archaeologists has examined a total of 85 pottery sherds with substantial amounts of foodcrusts from 13 archaeological sites across...

Reconstruction of the face of StW 573. Image credit: A. Beaudet.

Scientists Digitally Reconstruct Face of ‘Little Foot’

Mar 3, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Beyond their value for classification and evolutionary relationships, changes in the size and shape of the hominin face through time can reflect important...

Neanderthals. Image credit: Gemini AI.

Study: Ancient Mating Preferences Helped Shape Human Genome

Mar 2, 2026 by News Staff

Prehistoric humans and Neanderthals didn’t just interbreed, they did so with a consistent sex bias, as male Neanderthals and female modern humans mated...

The arrival of Homo erectus in Southeast Asia 1.8 million years ago triggered the evolution of major human malaria vectors.

Arrival of Homo erectus in Southeast Asia Changed Mosquito Menu, New Study Suggests

Feb 26, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The ancestors of today’s malaria-spreading mosquitoes in the Anopheles leucosphyrus (Leucosphyrus) group may have shifted to feeding on humans around...

Plaquette with hybrid creature (so-called ‘Adorant’), ivory, from the Swabian Aurignacian. Image credit: Christian Bentz & Ewa Dutkiewicz, doi: 10.1073/pnas.2520385123.

Early Humans May Have Invented System of Symbols Long Before Writing

Feb 25, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

Early humans living in Europe some 40,000 years ago developed a conventional system of geometric signs — deliberate, repeatable markings that went...

This is an artist's reconstruction of Homo erectus. Image credit: Yale University.

Early Homo Reached Jordan Valley by at Least 1.9 Million Years Ago

Feb 23, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

New research recalibrates the age of the Jordan Valley’s Ubeidiya Formation to nearly two million years, putting it on par with the famous site of Dmanisi...

Reconstruction of Homo erectus.

Homo erectus Reached East Asia Far Earlier than Previously Thought

Feb 18, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

New dating of fossil skulls from the Early Pleistocene site of Yunxian in China suggests that early members of Homo erectus lived in eastern Asia nearly...

Artist’s reconstruction of Xigou tool-hafting. Image credit: Hulk Yuan, IVPP.

China’s Xigou Site Yields Evidence of Advanced Stone Tool Technology

Jan 27, 2026 by News Staff

Technological innovations in Africa and Western Europe in the later part of the Middle Pleistocene signal the behavioral complexity of hominin populations....

Paranthropus boisei. Image credit: © Roman Yevseyev.

2.6-Million-Year-Old Fossil from Ethiopia Shows Paranthropus Hominins Were Widespread

Jan 21, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The newly-discovered fossil — a 2.6-million-year-old partial lower jaw found in the Afar region of Ethiopia — represents the first known specimen...

Facial reconstruction of Homo habilis. Image credit: Cicero Moraes.

2-Million-Year-Old Skeleton Offers Clearest Look Yet at Homo habilis

Jan 15, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A newly-described partial skeleton from the Koobi Fora Formation in northern Kenya is giving paleoanthropologists their most complete picture yet of Homo...

Leang Bulu Bettue in the Maros-Pangkep karst area of South Sulawesi. Image credit: Burhan et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0337993.

Enigmatic Hominins May Have Overlapped with Homo sapiens on Sulawesi

Jan 13, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

At Leang Bulu Bettue, a rock-shelter in the Maros-Pangkep karst region on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, paleoanthropologists have uncovered one of...

The 60,000-year-old backed microlith from Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: (A) buphanidrine and (B) epibuphanisine detected in a sample from the microlith; (C) the microlith showing the reddish poisonous adhesive residue still adhering to the dorsal backed portion of the tool. Image credit: Isaksson et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adz3281.

60,000-Year-Old Poisoned Arrowheads Found in South Africa

Jan 8, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists have identified traces of two toxic plant alkaloids — buphandrine and epibuphanisine — on artifacts from Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter...

Reconstruction of Homo erectus.

773,000-Year-Old Hominin Fossils from Morocco Offer New Clues to Roots of Homo sapiens

Jan 7, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The hominin fossils discovered in the Grotte à Hominidés at Thomas Quarry I in Casablanca, Morocco, are providing new evidence about the deep origins...

Reconstruction of Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Image credit: University of Silesia.

7-Million-Year-Old Sahelanthropus Fossils Bolster Case for Earliest Upright Walking

Jan 5, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

For more than two decades, Sahelanthropus tchadensis — a very early (6.7 to 7.2 million years old) hominin species discovered in Chad in 2001 —...

An artist’s concept of a Penghu Denisovan walking under the bright Sun during the Pleistocene of Taiwan. Image credit: Cheng-Han Sun.

Researchers Sequence Genome of 200,000-Year-Old Denisovan

Jan 2, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A research team led by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology scientists has generated the high-quality genome assembly of a Denisovan using...

Ancient humans. Image credit: sjs.org / CC BY-SA 3.0.

European Homo sapiens May Have Been Hunting with Bow and Arrow Earlier than Previously Believed

Dec 30, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

In a new paper published this month in the journal iScience, researchers from the University of Tübingen and elsewhere present a multidisciplinary analysis...

The facial depiction of the Beachy Head Woman. Image credit: Face Lab, Liverpool John Moores University.

‘Beachy Head Woman’ Originated from Southern England, Ancient DNA Study Shows

Dec 23, 2025 by News Staff

The skeletal remains of an individual colloquially referred to as Beachy Head Woman were re-discovered in the Eastbourne Town Hall collection in 2012,...

This image shows a Neanderthal and a human kid. Image credit: Neanderthal Museum.

New Research Explores Paleolithic Transition from Neanderthals to Anatomically Modern Humans

Dec 22, 2025 by News Staff

The Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition approximately 50,000 to 38,000 years ago is marked by the decline and extinction of Neanderthals, the emergence...

This is an artist's reconstruction of Homo erectus. Image credit: Yale University.

1.5-Million-Year-Old Fossil Reveals New Details about Homo erectus

Dec 16, 2025 by News Staff

Paleoanthropologists have examined and reconstructed DAN5, a 1.5-million-year-old fossilized skull of early Homo erectus found in Gona in the Afar region...

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