Paleoanthropology News

Study: Just Like Homo sapiens, Neanderthals Organized Their Living Space in Structured Way

A group of Neanderthals in a cave. Image credit: Tyler B. Tretsven.
Apr 11, 2024 by News Staff

Because it is often assumed that fundamental behavioral differences distinguish Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, the ability to structure space within the sites they occupied into distinct activity areas is often invoked as a key distinctive trait of our species. However, this behavior has never been assessed for both groups at a single site, hindering direct comparisons to date. To help resolve this question, archaeologists from the Université de...

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The upper (a) and lower (b) surfaces of the purported sand sculpture from South Africa. Image credit: Helm et al.

120,000-Year-Old Stingray Sand ‘Sculpture’ Found in South Africa

Apr 9, 2024 by News Staff

Nelson Mandela University researcher Charles Helm and his colleagues have found an intriguing rock about 30 km (18.6 miles) east of the South African Blombos...

The wooden spears from the Schöningen site, Germany. Image credit: Minkusimages / Matthias Vogel, NLD.

Study: Woodworking Played Important Role in Human Evolution

Apr 8, 2024 by News Staff

Wooden tools rarely survive in the Paleolithic record limiting our understanding of Pleistocene hunter-gather lifeways. With 187 wooden artifacts, the...

First peopling of Europe. Image credit: Garba et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07151-3.

1.4-Million-Year-Old Stone Tools Found in Ukraine Document Earliest Hominin Occupation of Europe

Mar 7, 2024 by Sergio Prostak

Archaeologists have dated an assemblage of ancient stone tools excavated from the archaeological site of Korolevo on the Tysa River in western Ukraine...

Photographs, drawings, and details of stone tools from Le Moustier, France. Image credit: D. Greinert / Schmidt et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adl0822.

Neanderthals Created Stone Tools Held Together by Ochre-Based Adhesives, Scientists Say

Feb 21, 2024 by News Staff

Archaeologists have found traces of ancient ochre-based multicomponent adhesives on 40,000-year-old stone tools from Le Moustier, France. Photographs,...

Stratigraphy with location of Homo sapiens bones, map of LRJ sites and stone tools from the site of Ranis, Germany. Image credit: Mylopotamitaki et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06923-7.

Homo sapiens Reached Northern Europe by 45,000 Years Ago, Scientists Say

Jan 31, 2024 by News Staff

Homo sapiens associated with the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician culture were present in central and northwestern Europe long before the extinction...

The portrait of Homo longi. Image credit: Cicero Moraes, doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.24648591.

Face of Homo longi Reconstructed

Jan 15, 2024 by Sergio Prostak

A Brazilian anthropologist has reconstructed the face of the archaic human species Homo longi from a well-preserved skull discovered in northeastern China...

An artist’s impression of a group of Gigantopithecus blacki within a forest in southern China. Image credit: Garcia / Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University.

Gigantopithecus Went Extinct between 295,000 and 215,000 Years Ago, New Study Says

Jan 10, 2024 by Sergio Prostak

Gigantopithecus blacki, the largest ever primate and one of the largest species of the southeast Asian megafauna, persisted in China from about 2 million...

Map of Sahul showing the extent of the now-submerged continental shelf (dark gray), with the area of the Northwest Shelf demarcated by a dashed black box, and the present-day distribution of the Köppen climate groups (seasonal precipitation and temperature) showing the extent of modern-day Australia and New Guinea. The tropical distribution of Late Pleistocene sites containing early axe technology are shown as black circles, sites without early axe technology as gray circles, and sites demonstrating Late Pleistocene occupation of the now submerged continental shelves as white circles. Image credit: Peter Hiscock / Norman et al., doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108418.

Up To Half Million People Once Lived on Now-Submerged Northwest Shelf of Sahul

Dec 20, 2023 by News Staff

The new-submerged Northwest Shelf of Sahul — the combined landmass of Australia and New Guinea at times of lower sea level — was a vast area...

Velazquez-Arcelay et al. found that genetic material from Neanderthal ancestors may have contributed to the propensity of some people today to be early risers, the sort of people who are more comfortable getting up and going to bed earlier. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Neanderthals Were Early Risers, New Research Suggests

Dec 14, 2023 by News Staff

When the ancestors of modern Eurasians migrated out of Africa and interbred with Eurasian archaic hominins, namely Neanderthals and Denisovans, DNA of...

Reconstructed life appearance of the straight-tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus in (top) side and (bottom) frontal view, based on remains uncovered from the Neumark-Nord 1 site in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Image credit: Hsu Shu-yu.

Straight-Tusked Elephant Exploitation Was Widespread among Neanderthals, Archaeologists Say

Dec 7, 2023 by News Staff

Archaeologists from MONREPOS, the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and Leiden University have recently learned that around 125,000 years ago, hunting...

Castor sp. from the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America by John Woodhouse Audubon.

Hominins Hunted Beavers At Least 400,000 Years Ago, Ancient Bones Reveal

Nov 29, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the Leibniz Zentrum für Archäologie and Leiden University say they have found cut marks...

Bear skins have high insulating properties and might have played a role in the adaptations of Middle Pleistocene hominins, such as Homo heidelbergensis depicted here, to the cold and harsh winter conditions of Northwestern Europe. Image credit: Benoît Clarys.

Middle Paleolithic Human Diet was More Diverse than Previously Thought

Nov 28, 2023 by News Staff

Archaeologists from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen have analyzed the ancient animal remains...

The facial reconstruction of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal. Image credit: Moraes et al.

Scientists Reconstruct Face of La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal

Nov 21, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleoanthropologists have reconstructed the face of a Neanderthal man whose 56,000-year-old remains were found at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in south-central...

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

36,500-Year-Old Human Genomes from Crimea Shed New Light on First Europeans

Oct 23, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Populations genetically related to present-day Europeans first appeared in Europe at some point after 38,000-40,000 years ago, following a cold period...

Comparisons of Neanderthal genomes to anatomically modern human (AMH) genomes show a history of Neanderthal-to-AMH introgression stemming from interbreeding after the migration of AMHs from Africa to Eurasia. All non-sub-Saharan African AMHs have genomic regions genetically similar to Neanderthals that descend from this introgression. Regions of the genome with Neanderthal similarities have also been identified in sub-Saharan African populations, but their origins have been unclear. To better understand how these regions are distributed across sub-Saharan Africa, the source of their origin, and what their distribution within the genome tells us about early AMH and Neanderthal evolution, Harris et al. analyzed a dataset of high-coverage, whole-genome sequences from 180 individuals from 12 diverse sub-Saharan African populations. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Neanderthals Interbred with Now-Extinct Lineage of Early Modern Humans Over 250,000 Years Ago

Oct 20, 2023 by News Staff

Approximately 6% of the Altai Neanderthal genome was inherited from an ancient lineage of anatomically modern Homo sapiens that migrated from Africa to...

Reconstruction of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)

Scientists Reconstruct Skull of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus

Oct 17, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Pierolapithecus catalaunicus is an extinct species of great ape that lived in what is now Europe about 12 million years ago. A remarkably complete, although...

Frontal view of the portrait of Homo heidelbergensis from Petralona, Greece, with hair and skin pigmentation. Image credit: Aidonis et al., doi: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2023.104206.

Anthropologists Reconstruct Face of Homo heidelbergensis

Oct 13, 2023 by Sergio Prostak

Anthropologists in Greece have used facial reconstruction techniques to show how Homo heidelbergensis, a poorly understood relative of Neanderthals that...

Neanderthals butchering the freshly killed cave lion from Siegsdorf, Germany. Image credit: Julio Lacerda / NLD.

Neanderthals Were Hunting Cave Lions 48,000 Years Ago

Oct 12, 2023 by News Staff

During the Upper Paleolithic, lions become an important theme in Paleolithic art and are more frequent in anthropogenic faunal assemblages. However, the...

The ancient human footprints found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, the United States. Image credit: Bennett et al., doi: 10.1126/science.abg7586.

New Radiocarbon Dating Confirms Age of 23,000-Year-Old Human Footprints in New Mexico

Oct 6, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Traditionally, paleoanthropologists believed that humans arrived in North America around 16,000 to 13,000 years ago. Recently, however, evidence has accumulated...

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