Human Origins

Paleo diet? Not so much. Thanks to Neanderthal dental plaque, researchers are getting a much better idea of what our ancestors actually dined on.

Scientists Delve Into Neanderthal Dental Plaque to Understand How They Lived and Ate

The plaque that coated Neanderthal teeth is shedding new light on how our ancestors ate, self-medicated and interacted with humans

The 38,000-year-old woolly mammoth carving next to Georges Seurat's "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte." Despite the vast amount of time between their respective creations, both use a collection of dots to form a larger image.

Prehistoric Pointillism? Long Before Seurat, Ancient Artists Chiseled Mammoths Out of Dots

Newly discovered 38,000-year-old cave art predates the French post-Impressionist art form

An artist's recreation of what the ancient creature looked like.

Bag-Like, Big-Mouthed Sea Creature Could Be Earliest Human Ancestor

This minute wriggly sea blob could represent some of the earliest steps along the path of evolution

The limestone carving of an aurochs

Dig This: Researchers Found a 38,000-Year-Old Engraving in France

Excavated from a rock shelter, the image of an aurochs covered in dots was made by the Aurignacians, the earliest group of modern humans in Europe

The horse mandible marked by traces of stone tools, which might prove humans came to North American 10,000 years earlier than previously believed.

Humans May Have Arrived in North America 10,000 Years Earlier Than We Thought

A 24,000-year-old horse jawbone is helping rewrite our understanding of human habitation on the continent

Mouse embryo growing rat heart cells

Human-Pig Chimeras Created for the First Time

The hybrid embryos are the first step in interspecies organ transplants

This piece of rock might have caught a Neanderthal's eye

Did Neanderthals Like Pretty Rocks?

An unusual rock in a cave inhabited by Neanderthals in Croatia suggests the hominids may have picked up interesting stones

A reconstruction of Ötzi the Iceman at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.

Ötzi the Iceman's Last Meal Included Goat Bacon

Analysis of the 5,300-year-old mummy's stomach contents shows he ate dry-cured meat from a mountain ibex

Early stage human embryos

Second "Three-Parent" Baby Born. This Time, It's a Girl

The baby was produced through a controversial technique that requires implanting a fertilized nucleus into a donor egg

Skeleton of the Trojan woman

Remains From 800-Year-Old "Trojan Woman" Record Early Maternal Infection

Bacterial nodes on the skeleton and DNA from her fetus show the woman likely died from an infection of her placenta

Fossil Footprints Show Movements of Our Early Ancestors

The trace fossils found in Tanzania spurred a debate about how early hominids lived

An ancient grape seed found at the Lake Hula site

The Paleo Diet May Need a Rewrite, Ancient Humans Feasted on a Wide Variety of Plants

Archaeologists in Israel have counted 55 species of plant foods a an early hominid site on Lake Hula

New Dictionary Explains 45,000 English and Irish Surnames

Using sources dating back to the 11th century, researchers have put together the massive Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland

Human and Neanderthal skulls

Why Humans Don't Have More Neanderthal DNA

The mutations humans acquired from Neanderthals are slowly being purged from the genome overtime

The Warryti Rock Shelter in the Flinders Range

Aboriginal Australians Lived In Country's Interior 10,000 Years Earlier Than Thought

Excavations at a rock shelter in the Flinders Range shows people were there 49,000 years ago, hunting megafauna and developing new tools

Striations on teeth of a Homo habilis fossil 1.8 million years old suggest the earliest evidence in the fossil record for right-handedness. Researchers believe the marks came from using a tool to try to cut food being pulled from the mouth with the left hand.

Two-Million-Year-Old Jaw Has a Lot to Say About the Origins of Human Handedness

Scientists have discovered one of the earliest examples of handedness in an ancient human

Neanderthals May Have Given Us Both Good Genes and Nasty Diseases

DNA analysis shows ancient hominds transmitted genes that may have helped us adapt quicker to Europe and Asia. They also gave us HPV.

Campsite Places Humans in Argentina 14,000 Years Ago

Excavations at the site Arroyo Seco 2 include stone tools and evidence that humans were hunting giant sloths, giant armadillos and extinct horse species

A reconstruction of Ötzi the Iceman at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.

Hear the Recreated Voice of Ötzi the Iceman

Using CT scans of the Neolithic man's vocal tract, Italian researchers have approximated the way he pronounced his vowels

Welcome the First "Three-Parent" Baby Into the World

Fertility doctor John Zhang and his team transplanted DNA from one egg to another to prevent a fatal mitochondrial disease

Page 11 of 13