Palaeoanthropology

An international team that includes Tel Aviv University, Binghamton University and the University of New York has announced the discovery of the earliest modern human fossil to be found outside of Africa dating from 50,000 years ago.

In a newly published study in the “Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology,” Senckenberg scientist Professor Dr. Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke, in conjunction with an international team of renowned Stone Age experts, refutes a recent publication regarding the dispersal of humans in Europe.

The site of Kent’s Cavern is one of the most important early archaeological sites in the United Kingdom and caused a heated debate between palaeoanthropologists over the age of the KC4 fragment of human jaw in 2011. In 2017, a team of archaeologists re-assessed the archaeological sediments.

South Africa's status as a major cradle in the African nursery of humankind has been reinforced with today's unveiling of "Little Foot", the country's oldest, virtually complete fossil human ancestor.

Neanderthals survived at least 3,000 years longer than we thought in Southern Iberia - what is now Spain - long after they had died out everywhere else, according to new research published in Heliyon.

At Northern Illinois University, Dan Gebo opens a cabinet and pulls out a drawer full of thin plastic cases filled with clear gelatin capsules. Inside each numbered capsule is a tiny fossil--some are so small they rival the diminutive size of a mustard seed.

A wide-ranging new study of fossils spanning over four million years suggests that stature and body mass advanced at different speeds during the evolution of hominins - the ancestral lineage of which Homo sapiens alone still exist.

An older Neandertal from about 50,000 years ago, who had suffered multiple injuries and other degenerations, became deaf and must have relied on the help of others to avoid prey and survive well into his 40s.

New research suggests that the last common ancestor of apes--including great apes and humans--was much smaller than previously thought, about the size of a gibbon. The findings, published today in the journal Nature Communications, are fundamental to understanding the evolution of the human family tree.

Two new studies on ancient genomes provide valuable insights into the lives of our ancestors and their cousins, the Neandertals.

Two herpes simplex viruses infect primates from unknown evolutionary depths. In modern humans these viruses manifest as cold sores (HSV1) and genital herpes (HSV2).

How did Neanderthals grow? Does modern man develop in the same way as Homo neanderthalensis did? How does the size of the brain affect the development of the body? A study led by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) researcher, Antonio Rosas, has studied the fossil remains of a Neanderthal child's skeleton in order to establish whether there are differences between the growth of Neanderthals and that of sapiens.

There has been a lot of interest in our discovery of nearly-6m-year-old footprints on Crete, first reported by the The Conversation – suggesting that human ancestors could have roamed Europe at the same time as they were evolving in East Africa.

Ancient DNA recovered from fossils is a valuable tool to study evolution and anthropology. Yet ancient fossil DNA from earlier geological ages has not been found yet in any part of Africa, where it's destroyed by extreme heat and humidity.

 A 52-million-year-old ankle fossil suggests our prehuman ancestors were high-flying acrobats.