Anthropology

A miniature ancient Egyptian coffin measuring just 44cm in length has been found to contain the youngest ever example of a human foetus to be embalmed and buried in Egyptian society.

The last Ice Age made much of the globe uninhabitable, but there were oases - or refugia - where people 20,000 years ago were able to cluster and survive. Researchers at the University of Huddersfield, who specialise in the analysis of human DNA, have found new evidence that there was one or more of these shelters in what is now Southern Arabia.

Not much is known about the genetics of Eurasian history before the introduction of farming. One of the major questions is how climatic fluctuations influenced the population history of Eurasia and to what extent changes in material cultures correspond to movements of people.

A study performed at IRB Barcelona offers an explanation as to why the genetic code, the dictionary used by organisms to translate genes into protein, stopped growing 3,000 million years ago.

Biological anthropologist Sharon DeWitte studies ancient skeletons that can open a window onto the human history she hopes to illuminate. But as she and graduate student Samantha Yaussy show in a recently published study, some of the markers on the skeletons that scientists use to decipher the past might need to be looked at in a new light.

When fluctuating climates in the Ice Age altered habitats, modern humans may have adapted their diets in a different way than Neandertals, according to a study published April 27, 2016 in the open-access journalPLOS ONE by Sireen El Zaatari of the University of Tübingen, Germany, and colleagues.

The largest ever study of global genetic variation in the human Y chromosome has uncovered the hidden history of men. Research published today (25 April) in Nature Genetics reveals explosions in male population numbers in five continents, occurring at times between 55 thousand and four thousand years ago.

Exactly why so many humans choose monogamous pair bonds over juggling multiple partners has long been a mystery to scientists.

The top section of a skull of what is thought to be someone who met their demise on the battlefield has been on display at The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh’s Hall Museums in Nicolson Street for many years.

A new study finds that ritual human sacrifice played a central role in helping those at the top of the social hierarchy maintain power over those at the bottom.

The first largescale study of ancient DNA from early American people has confirmed the devastating impact of European colonisation on the Indigenous American populations of the time.

Using advanced sequencing technologies, University of Oklahoma anthropologists demonstrate that human DNA can be significantly enriched from dental calculus (calcified dental plaque) enabling the reconstruction of whole mitochondrial genomes for maternal ancestry analysis--an alternative to skeletal remains in ancient DNA investigations of human ancestry.

A new study by scientists at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and Harvard Medical School offers surprising new insight into the genetic ancestry of modern humans. The research, published today in the journal Current Biology, also rewrites the timeline of when ancient humans interbred with other hominids by thousands of years.

Think your DNA is all human? Think again. And a new discovery suggests it’s even less human than scientists previously thought.

Forensic researchers have for the first time established science-based standards for identifying human remains based on X-rays of an individual's spine, upper leg or the side of the skull.