human history

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.

Scientists find human DNA preserved in lice cement from the heads of South American mummies.

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.

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.

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.

The analysis adds new details to the picture of migration and mixing in a diverse country.

Microscopic analysis of charred, shapeless lumps from archaeological sites revealed ancient cereal grains that may have undergone malting to make beer.

Genetics and archaeology yield clues as to when humans first arrived on the continent and how these early settlers lived.

A massive study finds that regional differences in how slaves were treated throughout the Americas are reflected in the DNA of present-day Americans of African descent.

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

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.

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.

Dating back to 16,000 years, items from a dig site in Idaho point to the first settlers arriving by a Pacific coastal route rather than by an ice-free land bridge from Siberia.

From an excavation of a site called Çatalhöyük, in modern-day Turkey, scientists recover preserved whipworm eggs—a sign of settling down and living in close quarters.