Tag Archive for 'Homo sapiens'

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...

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...

Human colonization and associated bird extinctions: human expansion across the planet is classified into four major waves; major human dispersal routes are indicated with arrows, and silhouettes show example fossil (pre-Holocene - 1500 CE) and observed (1500 CE - present) bird extinctions. Image credit: Cooke et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-43445-2.

Humans May Have Led to Extinction of At Least 1,300 Bird Species since Pleistocene: Study

Dec 20, 2023 by News Staff

Birds are among the best-studied animal groups, but their prehistoric diversity is poorly known due to low fossilization potential. Hence, while many human-driven...

The human genome contains approximately half a million copies of LINE-1. Image credit: Baldwin et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06947-z.

Scientists Reveal Structure of Ancient Virus-Like Genetic Element

Dec 18, 2023 by News Staff

The Long Interspersed Element-1 (LINE-1) retrotransposon is an ‘ancient genetic parasite’ that has written around one third of the human genome through...

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...

Astronaut David R. Scott, commander, gives a military salute while standing beside the deployed United States flag during the Apollo 15 lunar surface extravehicular activity (EVA) at the Hadley-Apennine landing site. The flag was deployed toward the end of EVA-2. The Lunar Module, ‘Falcon,’ is partially visible on the right. Hadley Delta in the background rises approximately 4,000 m (about 13,124 feet) above the plain. The base of the mountain is approximately 5 km (about three statue miles) away. This photograph was taken by astronaut James B. Irwin, lunar module pilot. While astronauts Scott and Irwin descended in the Lunar Module to explore the Moon, astronaut Alfred M. Worden, command module pilot, remained in lunar orbit in the Command and Service Modules. Image credit: NASA / JSC.

Lunar Anthropocene: Are We in New Epoch of Moon’s History?

Dec 11, 2023 by Natali Anderson

In a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, Kansas Geological Survey researcher Justin Holcomb and his colleagues argue the new epoch may have...

Global distribution of MSIs across 9,179 language varieties from the ASJP database. Color of dots represents the MSI of the language, with redder dots indicating higher and bluer dots indicating lower indices. The fill color of land areas represents the mean annual temperature. Image credit: Wang et al., doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad384.

Climate Plays Role in Shaping Evolution of Human Languages, New Study Reveals

Dec 5, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Sounds of human languages can be affected by various factors of the natural environment. One such factor is the mean annual temperature. In new research,...

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...

Reconstruction of a Neanderthal. Image credit: Neanderthal Museum.

31,000-Year-Old Spearthrower Points Unearthed in Belgium

Nov 7, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists in Belgium have demonstrated that spearthrowers were used for launching projectiles armed with tanged flint points at the Early Upper Paleolithic...

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...

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...

Analyzing high-density genotype data from 7,594 Latin Americans, Faux et al. characterized Neanderthal introgression in the SCN9A gene. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Study: Neanderthals May Have Been More Sensitive to Mechanical Pain than Most Humans

Oct 12, 2023 by News Staff

People carrying three Neanderthal variants — known as M932L, V991L, and D1908G — in the gene SCN9A are more sensitive to pain from skin pricking...

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...

An artist’s illustration of hominins arriving in a multi-biome mosaic landscape. Image credit: Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science.

Homo sapiens Dispersed from Africa into Eurasia via Well-Watered Jordan Rift Valley: Study

Oct 4, 2023 by News Staff

Our species, Homo sapiens, dispersed from Africa into Eurasia multiple times in the Middle and Late Pleistocene. According to new research led by Shantou...

Pangea Ultima temperature and habitability: (a) mammalian species diversity without the influence of humans; (b) habitable regions (green area) in the Pre-industrial simulation; (c-h) cold month mean temperature (CMMT; degrees Celsius); (c,f) warm month mean temperature (WMMT; degrees Celsius); (d,g) and habitable regions (green area); (e,h) under two end members of our sensitivity analysis: low-pCO2 conditions (280 ppm) Pangea Ultima planetary configuration (in 250 million years); (c-e) and high-pCO2 conditions (1,120 ppm) Pangea Ultima configuration (in 250 million years); (f-h) with global land surface temperature (GLST) (grid-weighted) indicated. Image credit: Farnsworth et al., doi: 10.1038/s41561-023-01259-3.

Climate Extremes Likely to Drive Mass Extinction of Land Mammals in 250 Million Years

Sep 26, 2023 by News Staff

In about 250 million years, all continents will converge to form Earth’s next supercontinent, Pangea Ultima. A natural consequence of the creation...

Upper Paleolithic drawing of the partial outline of a horse that uses the natural edge of the wall of La Pasiega Cave to represent the back and head of the horse. Image credit: Izzy Wisher / Gobierno de Cantabria.

Pareidolia May Have Stimulated Paleolithic Humans to Make Cave Art

Sep 25, 2023 by News Staff

Durham University archaeologist Izzy Wisher and colleagues investigated whether pareidolia — a psychological phenomenon where people see meaningful...

Simple schematic representation of the mutilation of the Tree of life because of generic extinctions and extinction risks. The bottom half of the tree depicted as dead branches shows examples of the extinct genera, and the upper half shows examples of genera at risk of extinction. Extinct genera: (I) lower row left - Delcourt’s giant gecko (Hoplodactylus, left), of which the only specimens known were found in a museum without a label, but probably they were found in New Zealand; and saddle-backed Rodrigues giant tortoise (Cylindraspis, right) from Rodrigues Island in the Indian Ocean. Lower row right - Yunnan Lake newt (Cynops, left) from China; and the gastric brooding frogs (Rheobatrachus, right) from rainforests in Queensland, Australia. (II) Second bottom-up row left - thylacine (Thylacinus, left), the largest carnivorous marsupial, last known from Tasmania; and Yangtze River dolphin or baijii (Lipotes, right) from China, one of very few freshwater dolphins. Second bottom-up row right - elephant birds (Aepyornis, left), the largest birds surviving to modern times, represent also both an extinct genus and family (Aepyornithidae) endemic to Madagascar; and Moho birds (genus Moho, right) represent also both an extinct genus and family (Mohidae) from Hawaii. Endangered genera: (III) Third bottom-up row left - King cobra (Ophiophagus, left) from Asia; and gavial (Gavialis, right) from India and Nepal. Third bottom-up row right - Alpine newt (Ichthyosaura, left) from Europe; and Mahogany frog (Abavorana, right) from the Malay Peninsula. (IV) Upper row left: volcano rabbit (Romerolagus, left) known from few mountains close to Mexico City, and elephant (Loxodonta, right) from Africa. Upper row right - ‘i’iwi or scarlet honeycreeper (Drepanis, left) from Hawaii; and kakapo (Strigops, right) a flightless parrot from New Zealand. Image credit: Marco Antonio Pineda.

Study: Human-Driven Sixth Mass Extinction is Eliminating Entire Animal Genera

Sep 18, 2023 by News Staff

Mass extinctions during the past 500 million years rapidly removed branches from the tree of life and required millions of years for evolution to generate...

A shod-hominin track in the Garden Route National Park, South Africa. Image credit: Charles Helm.

Middle Paleolithic Tracks Offer Oldest Evidence Yet of Human Footwear

Sep 15, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

New evidence from three tracksites on South Africa’s Cape coast suggests that early humans may have worn footwear while traversing dune surfaces during...

The Paleolithic cave art site of Cova Dones, Spain: (a) painted aurochs head; (b) horse head made with clay; (c) panel with several motifs painted with clay, including animals and signs (some partly covered by calcite layers). Image credit: Ruiz-Redondo et al., doi: 10.15184/aqy.2023.133.

New Paleolithic Cave Art Site Discovered in Spain

Sep 12, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists have discovered and examined over a hundred Paleolithic paintings and engravings — thought to be at least 24,000 years old —...

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