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Utopia: The ancient discoveries that point to the ideal human society

27 June 2023

Anthropology and archaeology are revealing that a human society can take myriad forms, which can teach us how to build a modern society that is more equal, resilient and stable


How fossil footprints are revealing the joy and fear of Stone Age life

How fossil footprints are revealing the joy and fear of Stone Age life

6 April 2022

A new wave of archaeological investigations is reconstructing intimate details of our ancestors' lives from fossilised footprints. They give us glimpses of everything from parent-child relationships to the thrill of a giant sloth hunt


Survival of the friendliest? Why Homo sapiens outlived other humans

Survival of the friendliest? Why Homo sapiens outlived other humans

24 November 2021

We once shared the planet with at least seven other types of human. Ironically, our success may have been due to our deepest vulnerability: being dependent on others


PROMOTIONAL USE ONLY. SQUID GAMES, NETFLIX Season 1. Episode 4. Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo

Why does evolution happen? The rules on Earth may well be universal

17 November 2021

Dig down, and evolution by natural selection is just about spontaneous, sustained accumulation of complexity – if life elsewhere exists, it’s likely to develop in the same way


The microbial gunk that hardens on teeth is revealing our deep past

The microbial gunk that hardens on teeth is revealing our deep past

15 September 2021

Plaque fossilises while we are still alive. Now, dental calculus is giving up the secrets of our ancient ancestors, from what they ate to how they interacted and evolved


illustration of faces in the desert

The other cradle of humanity: How Arabia shaped human evolution

18 August 2021

New evidence reveals that Arabia was not a mere stopover for ancestral humans leaving Africa, but a lush homeland where they flourished and evolved


Lost art of the Stone Age: The cave paintings redrawing human history

Lost art of the Stone Age: The cave paintings redrawing human history

28 July 2021

Newly discovered cave art gives fresh insight into the minds of our ancestors - and upends the idea that a Stone Age cultural explosion was unique to Europe


The surprising, ancient origins of TB, humanity's most deadly disease

The surprising, ancient origins of TB, humanity's most deadly disease

23 June 2021

New developments in a 10,000-year-old cold case have upended our ideas about how and when tuberculosis began infecting humans – and offered hope for a better vaccine


The rise and fall of the mysterious culture that invented civilisation

The rise and fall of the mysterious culture that invented civilisation

24 February 2021

Proto-cities built from 6200 years ago in eastern Europe upend our ideas about when civilisation began and why people made the move from rural to urban living


The other humans: The emerging story of the mysterious Denisovans

The other humans: The emerging story of the mysterious Denisovans

27 January 2021

The existence of the Denisovans was discovered just a decade ago through DNA alone. Now we're starting to uncover fossils and artefacts revealing what these early humans were like


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