Scans of eight fossilized adult and infant Australopithecus afarensis skulls reveal a prolonged period of brain growth during development that may have set the stage for extended childhood learning in later hominins.

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 newly discovered fossilized skull is between 66.8 million and 66.7 million years old and bears similarities to modern-day chickens and ducks.

A roughly 99-million-year-old piece of amber from northern Myanmar contains the skull of what appears to represent the smallest known dinosaur of the Mesozoic era.

The inner ear cavity proves to be a useful tool for studying the evolutionary relationships among monkeys, apes, and humans.

An extinct rodent relative of the capybara appears to have had a smaller brain-to-body ratio than similar species.

The skull changed shape in different ways than the brain during evolution, according to a new comparative study.

Researchers say the skull belongs to an Australopithecus species once thought to be a predecessor to “Lucy,” but now that relationship is murky.

Detailed imaging of the rodent central nervous system reveals new information about the route cerebrospinal fluid takes to leave the brain.

Head wounds in the fossilized skull of a Paleolithic man suggest foul play.

The DNA of a whale shows its father was a beluga and its mother was a narwhal.

Genetic information from dozens of individuals living 700 to 10,000 years ago reveals connections between Clovis and Native Americans and South Americans.

Prehistoric Andeans seemed especially fond of trepanation—holes drilled in the skull as a treatment for various ills.

The function of early hominins’ enlarged brow ridges, and their reduction in size in Homo sapiens, have puzzled paleoanthropologists for decades.

Scientists have identified a new genus of extinct horse that lived in North America during the last ice age. 

Ancient bones of the newly described toothless, stout-nosed dolphin Inermorostrum xenops suggest that it slurped its food.

Analysis of 40 European archaeological sites suggests a gradual extinction of Neanderthals over thousands of years.  

An examination of 17 ancient skulls shows that some Neanderthal features arose as far back as 430,000 years ago.

Scientists show that the position of the foramen magnum, the hole in the skull through which the spine connects to the brain, is correlated with locomotion and posture in mammals.