14 March 2019
The development of agriculture in the Neolithic transformed world languages thanks to softer food – a finding that resolves a long-standing puzzle of the origin of speech sounds
19 February 2019
Rainforest species are usually too difficult for people to catch – but for 45,000 years, humans in Sri Lanka survived by hunting squirrels and monkeys
29 November 2018
The Tibetan Plateau is a tough environment so we thought humans arrived only about 12,000 years ago, but it seems someone was there 40,000 to 30,000 years ago
29 November 2018
We thought the first Homo species evolved in East Africa 2.8 million years ago, but stone tools from Algeria suggest our origins may have spanned the continent
11 May 2018
Many of us carry DNA inherited from Neanderthals, but we can’t be sure how it affects us. Stem cells with Neanderthal DNA could tell us
2 May 2018
A butchered rhino found on the island of Luzon shows early humans were living in the Philippines 709,000 years ago, which may explain the origins of the diminutive Homo floresiensis
9 April 2018
A single bone found in the Saudi Arabian desert is at least 85,000 years old, and may shed light on the route early humans took out of Africa
27 March 2018
Even some of the more remote parts of the Amazon rainforest, far from major rivers, were once densely populated – centuries before the arrival of Europeans
26 March 2018
Our extinct cousins the Neanderthals seem to have targeted cave bears, which were normally intimidating foes, while they were sleepy and weak from hibernating through the winter
15 March 2018
The genes of extinct hominins called Denisovans live on in people from China and Papua New Guinea, suggesting two instances of cross-species breeding
