Rolf Quam, Binghamton University, State University of New York
New discoveries are changing archaeologists’ ideas about the origins of our own species and our migration out of Africa. This fossil pushes Homo sapiens’ African exodus date back by 50,000 years.
The story of where we come from evolves almost every year.
Shutterstock/Eugenio Marongiu
Recent research suggests that humankind’s origins lay outside of Africa. This is the nature of science: a paradigm that cannot be questioned on a regular basis becomes a dogma.
Here’s a modern human skull on the left, and Neanderthal skull on the right.
Darren Curnoe
Maeve, age 8, has a question that has stumped many scientists over the years. And that’s because it’s a surprisingly tricky question to answer. It depends a bit on what you mean by ‘person’.
Vandalised site, showing fresh sand along the edges of the slab where it has been lifted and the holes left by the removal of two blocks in the centre.
Babis Fassoulas
We can’t observe the brain activity of extinct human species. But we can observe modern brains doing the things that our distant ancestors did, looking for clues about how ancient brains worked.
When new discoveries are jealously guarded under lock and key, science suffers.
Andy Wright
Cats evolved in hot desert regions where there were lots of small animals to eat. So they evolved feet that are perfect for pouncing on prey, climbing, scratching and jumping from great heights.
How do scientists figure out when evolutionary events – like species splitting away from a common ancestor – happened? It turns out our DNA is a kind of molecular clock, keeping time via genetic changes.
Upper teeth of a Neanderthal who lived about 40,000 years ago.
Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg
Anthropologists gather clues about how our ancient ancestors lived from their teeth. What will future anthropologists make of us based on the fossilized pearly whites we’ll leave behind?