Palaeoanthropology

An international team of scientists has completed the first 3D virtual reconstruction of the ribcage of the most complete Neandertal skeleton unearthed to date, potentially shedding new light on how this ancient human moved and breathed.

A new study, led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, suggests that early hominin dispersals beyond Africa did not involve adaptations to environmental extremes, such as to arid and harsh deserts.

Fossil teeth from Italy, among the oldest human remains on the Italian Peninsula, show that Neanderthal dental features had evolved by around 450,000 years ago, according to a study published by Clément Zanolli of the Université Toulouse III Paul Sabatier in France and colleagues.

Climate change may have played a more important role in the extinction of Neanderthals than previously believed, according to a new study published in the journal, Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences.

Food needs to be broken down in the mouth before it can be swallowed and digested further. How this is being done depends on many factors, such as the mechanical properties of the foods and the morphology of the masticatory apparatus.

Together with their sister group the Neandertals, Denisovans are the closest extinct relatives of currently living humans.

New archaeological research from The Australian National University (ANU) has found that Homo erectus, an extinct species of primitive humans, went extinct in part because they were 'lazy'.

Two pygmy populations on the same tropical island. One went extinct tens of thousands of years ago; the other still lives there. Are they related?

A critical review of growing archaeological and palaeoenvironmental datasets relating to the Middle and Late Pleistocene (300-12 thousand years ago) hominin dispersals within and beyond Africa,demonstrates unique environmental settings and adaptations for Homo sapiens to previous and coexisting hominins such as Homo neanderthalensisrelative  and Homo erectus.

Neanderthals were able to make fire on a large scale with the aid of pyrite and hand-axes.

The study of neanderthals’ tartar reveals the widespread consumption of plants as a subsistence strategy.

A rare juvenile foot fossil of our early hominin ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis, exhibits several ape-like foot characteristics that could have aided in foot grasping for climbing trees, a new study shows.

An international team of scientists reports the oldest unambiguous hunting lesions documented in the history of humankind.

A cranium of a four-million-year-old fossil, that, in 1995 was described as the oldest evidence of human evolution in South Africa, has shown similarities to that of our own, when scanned through high resolution imaging systems.

New research out of South Africa's Wonderwerk Cave led by anthropologists at the University of Toronto (U of T) shows that the climate of the interior of southern Africa almost two million years ago was like no modern African environment -- it was much wetter.