Africa’s sparse fossil record alone cannot reveal our species’ evolutionary history.

While questions still outnumber answers, new findings from archaeology, genetics, and other disciplines are revealing surprising insights into the early cultures of the most recently populated continent.

Modern human genomes and bones left behind from ancient hominins in Africa tell a complex story about the origins of our species.

If confirmed, the result means people migrated to North America much earlier than thought, but some experts remain unconvinced.

A museum sample of a 3,000-year-old Egyptian crop plant yields genomic information that helps researchers track the plant’s domestication and migration.

A new analysis of more than 2,500 human genomes indicates that modern Eurasians who acquired Neanderthal DNA during past interbreeding migrated back to Africa and spread those sequences.

Genomic information from four children who lived thousands of years ago in what is now Cameroon could shed light on the spread of the Bantu languages and on the history of present-day African populations.

For the past 10 years, life science has moved us closer to a complete understanding of what makes us human—our similarities, our differences, and our shared history.

Modern-day populations in India descend from a mixture of peoples living thousands of years ago in South and Central Asia, including the Bronze-Age Indus Valley Civilization, two studies reveal.