Could a Moroccan cave hold a crucial piece of the puzzle of human origins? Hominin fossils dating back 773,000 years discovered in the country are bringing new evidence to the debate about the last common ancestor of present-day humans (Homo sapiens),

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 before modern humans spread across the globe. According ...

Human evolution has long been tied to growing brain size, and new research suggests prenatal hormones may have played a surprising role. By studying the relative lengths of index and ring fingers — a clue to oestrogen and testosterone exposure in the womb — researchers found that higher prenatal estrogen was linked to larger head size in newborn boys.

For decades, the dominant theory in human evolution suggested that modern humans descended from a single ancestral lineage in Africa. However, groundbreaking new research from the University of Cambridge challenges that idea, revealing a far more complex ...

The story of how us humans—and other mammals—got our noses may have just gotten more complicated. This is the conclusion of a new study by researchers from Japan who have studied how the face develops in embryonic mice. "Our findings challenge ...

A new study shows how the mismatch between where fossils are preserved and where humans likely lived may influence our understanding of early human evolution. Much of the early human fossil record originates from just a few places in Africa, where ...

One of the biggest mysteries in human evolution has just been solved. In 2010, a groundbreaking genetic analysis revealed that east Asia was once home to a previously unknown group of enigmatic ancient humans. We knew them as the Denisovans, but until very ...

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Scientists in a recent research study have uncovered a surprising link between the 2.7 million-year-old climate tipping point and human evolution. The researchers led by the University of

One hundred years ago, a small town in eastern Tennessee captured the attention of the entire country. A biology teacher in Dayton was accused of teaching human evolution to his students — which was illegal in Tennessee at the time. The teacher went on ...