A newly published study reveals evidence of a major cosmic event near the end of the Ice Age, detailing how a cosmic impact sparked climate change that caused mass extinctions. Herds of wooly mammoths once shook the earth beneath their feet, sending humans scurrying across the landscape of prehistoric Ohio. But then something much larger [...]

An international team of researchers used ancient DNA to reconstruct the first high-resolution genetic record of modern European lineages through time, observing both human DNA evolving in ‘real-time’ and the dramatic population changes that have taken place in Europe. Ancient DNA recovered from a series of skeletons in central Germany up to 7500 years old [...]

More than twenty scientists collaborated on a recently published study that reconstructed the ancestor of placental mammals. The common ancestor of more than 5,000 contemporary placental mammals such as rats, whales, and humans was a small, insect-eating animal that appeared after the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, an international team of researchers report [...]

A nearly 400,000 year old human fossil discovered in a Serbian cave is helping scientists shed new light on human evolution. Winnipeg, MB – A fossil fragment of a human lower jaw recovered from a Serbian cave is the oldest human ancestor found in this part of Europe. The newly obtained radiometric date of the [...]

Analyses of ancient DNA, which had been extracted from the leg bone of an early modern human living some 40,000 years ago near Beijing, revealed that this early modern human was related to the ancestors of many present-day Asians and Native Americans. An international team of researchers including Svante Pääbo and Qiaomei Fu of the [...]

A newly published study led by researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology found evidence that substantial gene flow between Indian populations and Australia occurred about 4,000 years ago. Australia is thought to have remained largely isolated between its initial colonization around 40,000 years ago and the arrival of Europeans in the late [...]

Archaeologists have retrieved medicinal tablets from a 2000-year old shipwreck, indicating that classical Mediterranean civilizations used sophisticated drugs. The scientists published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences¹. The merchant ship Relitto del Pozzino sank off the coast of Italy in 130 BCE. Archaeological excavations in 1989 and 1990 yielded [...]

Archaeologists have discovered some new stone blades from a cave from South Africa that seem to indicate that early humans were already quite adapt at crafting blades. The scientists published their findings in the journal Nature. The tiny blades are no longer than 3 cm in length were used as tips for throwable spears or [...]

A newly published study analyzes genetic and paleoanthropological evidence, showing that today’s human population is the result of a great demographic and geographic expansion that began approximately 45,000 to 60,000 years ago in Africa. A new, comprehensive review of humans’ anthropological and genetic records gives the most up-to-date story of the “Out of Africa” expansion [...]

In the 15th century, the population of the city state Xaltocan, part of the Otomí, vanished and was replaced by the growing Aztec culture. The fate of the Otomí in the region is known only through conflicting historical accounts and archaeological evidence. A new genetic study has recorded the comings and goings of the Otomí and [...]

A new study has calculated the energetic cost of growing a bigger brain. If humans had been eating a raw food diet exclusively, they would have had to spend more than 9 hours a day eating in order to get enough energy from unprocessed raw food alone to support their large brains. The scientists published [...]

While there are plenty of new technologies going into dentistry, researchers have discovered an ancient 6,500-year-old tooth that provides one of the earliest examples of human dentistry. The scientists published their findings in the journal PLoS ONE. Ancient dentists treated toothaches with beeswax. Experts in Italy, who have been studying the 6,500-year-old jaw and tooth, [...]