Paleoanthropology News

Oldest Modern-Human Fossil Outside Africa Found in Israel

Jan 26, 2018 by News Staff

An upper jawbone complete with teeth found at a site called Misliya Cave, part of a complex of prehistoric caves along the western slopes of Mount Carmel in Israel, shifts the estimated timeframe for when humans first left Africa, suggesting they did so 40,000-50,000 years earlier than previously thought. A report on the discovery is published in the journal Science. The Misliya cave site at the western cliffs of Mount Carmel, Israel. Image credit:...

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Easter Island, known as Rapa Nui to its earliest inhabitants, is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world. Image credit: Yerson Retamal.

Study: Easter Island Had Supportive and Inclusive Community

Jan 8, 2018 by News Staff

An analysis of so-called pukao — colossal stone hats of monumental statues (moai) on Easter Island — provides evidence contrary to the widely...

A scientific illustration of the Upward Sun River camp in what is now Interior Alaska. Image credit: Eric S. Carlson / Ben A. Potter.

Ancient Beringians: 11,500-Year-Old Genome Reveals Previously Unknown Native American Population

Jan 4, 2018 by News Staff

Genetic analysis of DNA from a female infant found at the Upward Sun River archaeological site in Alaska has revealed a previously unknown Native American...

Prehistoric Central European women’s manual labor was tougher than rowing in today’s boat crews.

Study: Prehistoric Women Were Stronger Than Today’s Female Athletes

Nov 29, 2017 by News Staff

Prehistoric women that lived in Central Europe during the first 5,500 years of farming had stronger upper arms than living female rowing champions, according...

Guanches. Image credit: Gran Enciclopedia Virtual de las Islas Canarias.

Ancient DNA Study Confirms North African Origin of Guanches

Oct 27, 2017 by News Staff

The aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands, commonly known as Guanches, were genetically most similar to modern North African Berbers, according...

A reconstruction of a Neanderthal man. Image credit: Neanderthal Museum.

Despite Deafness, Missing Forearm and Limp, This Neanderthal Lived into His Forties

Oct 24, 2017 by News Staff

An older adult male Neanderthal from the Late Pleistocene, who had suffered multiple injuries, became deaf and must have relied on social support from...

Prehistoric rock paintings in Manda Guéli Cave in the Ennedi Mountains, Chad, Central Africa. Image credit: David Stanley / CC BY 2.0.

Humans Migrated Out of Africa to Escape Drying Climate, New Study Says

Oct 17, 2017 by News Staff

Ancient humans left Africa to escape a drying climate, about 60,000 years ago — a finding that contradicts previous suggestions that humens were...

The Trachilos footprints were discovered by Dr. Gerard Gierlinski, a paleontologist at the Polish Geological Institute, by chance when he was on holiday on Crete in 2002. Dr. Gierlinski identified the footprints as those of a mammal. In 2010, he returned to the site together with Dr. Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki, a Polish paleontologist at Uppsala University, to study the footprints in detail. Together they came to the conclusion that the footprints were made by hominins. Image credit: Andrzej Boczarowski.

5.6-Million-Year-Old Hominin-Like Footprints in Crete Challenge Theories of Human Evolution

Sep 1, 2017 by News Staff

Researchers have found late Miocene footprints — which show hominin-like characteristics — near the village of Trachilos, west of Kissamos,...

Artist’s reconstruction of an Asian caveman. Image credit: Peter Schouten.

Anatomically Modern Humans Arrived in Southeast Asia Far Earlier than Previously Thought

Aug 14, 2017 by News Staff

New excavations of a cave site in western Sumatra called Lida Ajer indicate modern humans reached Southeast Asia between 73,000 to 63,000 years ago —...

Cro-Magnon artists painting woolly mammoths by Charles R. Knight.

Europe’s Early Homo sapiens Ate Mammoth Meat and Plants

Aug 9, 2017 by News Staff

Plants and the meat of mammoths, red deer and horses were a major part of the diet of anatomically modern humans who lived in what is now Crimea, Ukraine,...

Enigmatic Archaic Human Relative Interbred with Ancestors of Modern Africans, Study Suggests

Jul 24, 2017 by News Staff

A mysterious hominin species mated with the ancestors of modern-day Sub-Saharan Africans, according to an analysis of modern human genomes published this...

Easter Island, known as Rapa Nui to its earliest inhabitants, is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world. Image credit: Yerson Retamal.

Easter Islanders Didn’t Cause Ecological Disaster on Their Island, New Research Finds

Jul 12, 2017 by News Staff

New research provides evidence contrary to the widely-held belief that the prehistoric population of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) caused an ecological disaster...

Neanderthals used toothpicks likely made of bones or stems of grass. Image credit: Abel Grau, CSIC Communication.

Paleoanthropologists Find Evidence of Neanderthal Dentistry

Jun 30, 2017 by News Staff

University of Kansas Professor David Frayer and co-authors have discovered multiple toothpick grooves on teeth of a Neanderthal individual who lived 130,000...

New Fossil Finds Push Back Origins of Homo sapiens by 115,000 Years

Jun 8, 2017 by News Staff

The fossilized remains of at least five individuals discovered at the archaeological site of Jebel Irhoud in Morocco have been dated at 315,000 years,...

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.

Graecopithecus freybergi: Oldest Hominin Lived in Europe, not Africa

May 24, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of paleoanthropologists, led by Professor Madelaine Böhme of the University of Tübingen, Germany, has analyzed 7.2 million-year-old...

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 Walked Earth More Recently than Thought

May 9, 2017 by News Staff

Dating of Homo naledi fossils from the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system, South Africa, shows that they were deposited between about 335,000...

A Homo naledi skull, ‘Neo.’ Image credit: Hawks et al, doi: 10.7554/eLife.24232.

South African Cave System Yields Yet More Fossils of Homo naledi

May 9, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of paleoanthropologists announced today in the journal eLife the discovery of a second chamber in the Rising Star cave system, located...

Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. Image credit: Alex Demin / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA Uncovered in Caves without Skeletal Remains

Apr 28, 2017 by News Staff

New research led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) shows that Pleistocene cave sediments represent a rich source of ancient...

First Humans Arrived in North America 116,000 Years Earlier than Thought: Evidence from Cerutti Mastodon Site

Apr 27, 2017 by News Staff

Researchers digging at the Cerutti Mastodon site, an archaeological site from the early late Pleistocene epoch near San Diego, California, found animal...

According to Argue et al, Homo floresiensis is a long-surviving relict of an early hominin lineage and an unknown migration out of Africa, and not a recent derivative of either Homo erectus or Homo sapiens. This image is an artist’s impression of Homo floresiensis. Image credit: Katrina Kenny.

Homo floresiensis Likely Evolved from Primitive Ancestor in Africa, Researchers Say

Apr 23, 2017 by News Staff

An Australian National University-led team of researchers has found that Homo floresiensis — a dwarfed human species that lived until about 50,000...

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