Did modern humans erase Neanderthals, or did our close cousins fade away for reasons that had little to do with us? A pair of major papers in Science and Nature on Dec. 12, 2024, sharpen that question ...

Life on Earth began in a way that still boggles the mind. Around 4.5 billion years ago, a chemical process called abiogenesis ...

One of the defining features of human evolution is the steady expansion of our brains. New findings suggest this growth may be partly linked to higher levels of estrogen before birth. Surprisingly, a ...

The evolution of human hands is one of the most important – and overlooked – stories of our origin. Now, new fossil evidence ...

Humans are fundamentally technological creatures. We depend on the manufacture and use of tools for our survival to a degree qualitatively greater than any other species. Therefore, an understanding ...

The first major evolutionary change in the human diet was the incorporation of meat and marrow from large animals, which occurred by at least 2.6 million years ago. The diet of the earliest hominins ...

New clues about our earliest ancestors suggest they may have reached Eurasia sooner than scientists once thought. Fossils found in Romania hint that hominins left Africa nearly two million years ...

A new analysis argues that this daily work of processing and cooking food helped reshape human bodies and social life. It explores how fire, tools, and cooperation driven by women changed humans’ ...

The evolution of the human species is marked by an increase in brain size. Now new research suggests that could be partly ...

Stone tools like this one, excavated at the Anyama site, reveal that humans were present at the rainforested site roughly 150,000 years ago. Credit: Jimbob Blinkhorn, MPG Stone tools like this one, ...