The oldest DNA yet isolated from humans in Africa reveals long-range migrations around 50,000 years ago, which likely played a role in the Middle to Later Stone Age transition.
Researchers excavated human footprints out of a small bluff next to a dried-up playa lake and radiocarbon-dated embedded seeds to around 23,000 years ago. Their results suggest that people entered the Americas thousands of years earlier than the accepted estimate.
An analysis concludes that pigments were transported into the cave, and the marks were made with intention, though their ultimate meaning remains unknown.
A massive, well-preserved skull discovered in China in the 1930s belongs to a new species called Homo longi, researchers report, but experts remain skeptical about the evidence.
Impressions that ancient brains left in fossilized skulls reveal that the first human ancestors to migrate out of Africa had much more primitive brains than previously thought.
A new analysis of the hand of the 4.4-million-year-old partial skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus indicates that the human ancestor may have climbed and swung through trees like chimpanzees do.
An isotopic analysis of eggshell beads dating back more than 30,000 years indicates that they helped build networks that stretched for hundreds of kilometers.
The crania of individuals who lived in the Yucatán Peninsula during the late Pleistocene show a high degree of anatomical diversity among them, and their skull shapes differ from that of other North American populations of the time.
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.
Microbial species that are commonly associated with oral diseases in modern humans are unreliable proxies for determining tooth health status in ancient samples, a new study finds.
Thirteen hominin bones found in a cave are so unique that archaeologists have determined they stem from a distinct hominin species, although others question whether the researchers have enough evidence.
Agriculture and other land uses can distort the levels of an earth mineral marker used to map the origins and movements of ancient humans and animals, a new study finds.
Analyses of more than 300 ancient human genomes show that Hepatitis B virus has infected humans for at least 4,500 years and has much older origins than modern viral genomes would suggest.
