Modern humans descended from not one, but at least two ancestral populations that drifted apart and later reconnected, long before modern humans spread across the globe. Using advanced analysis based ...

The origins of human language remain mysterious. Are we the only animals truly capable of complex speech? Are Homo sapiens the only hominids who could give detailed directions to a far-off freshwater ...

A new study suggests that the NOVA1 gene may have been a key player in the evolution of human language. By Carl Zimmer Scientists have long struggled to understand how human language evolved. Words ...

Fossils unearthed in Ethiopia are reshaping our view of human evolution. Instead of a straight march from ape-like ancestors to modern humans, researchers now see a tangled, branching tree with ...

A collection of bones from Casablanca holds important new clues to the origins of modern humans and Neanderthals.

Two of the traits that set modern humans apart from non-human primates are taller stature and a higher basal metabolic rate. Researchers have identified a genetic variant that contributed to the ...

A lost chapter in human evolution has been revealed after an analysis of modern DNA found that we come from not one but two ancestral populations—ones that drifted apart and later reconnected long ...

Life on Earth began in a way that still boggles the mind. Around 4.5 billion years ago, a chemical process called abiogenesis occurred, where life emerged from non-life. Imagine a hot, watery mix of ...

On Valentine’s Day in 2018, a team of scientists walked across a flat expanse in the badlands of northeastern Ethiopia, scanning the ground for fossils. An eagle-eyed field assistant, Omar Abdulla, ...

Ancient bones discovered in a cave in Casablanca, Morocco, could fill in some of the blanks about human evolution. The cave, ...

John Gowlett receives funding from PAST Africa and Wenner-Gren Foundation, and his work has previously been supported by The Leverhulme Trust. He is associated with a new series of podcasts on human ...

Many people hold the view that evolution in humans has come to a halt. But while modern medicine and technologies have changed the environment in which evolution operates, many scientists are in ...