Anthropology

Anthropology

Extinct ancestor wasn’t so finicky

Contrary to much anthropological thought, the genus Paranthropus showed as much dietary and behavioral flexibility as ancient Homo species did between 3 million and 1 million years ago.

Anthropology

Early Ancestors Come Together: Humanity’s roots may lie in single, diverse genus

Newly discovered fossil teeth in eastern Africa that are more than 5 million years old suggest that the earliest members of the human family evolved as a single, anatomically diverse genus.

Anthropology

Linguists in Siberia record dying tongues

Researchers trekking through remote Russian villages have identified and interviewed some of the last remaining speakers of two Turkic languages.

Anthropology

Some Primates’ Sheltered Lives: Baboons, chimps enter the realm of cave

In separate studies, researchers have gathered the first systematic evidence showing that baboons and chimpanzees regularly use caves, a behavior many anthropologists have attributed only to people and our direct ancestors.

Anthropology

European find gets Stone Age date

A new radiocarbon analysis indicates that a skeleton found more than a century ago in an Italian cave dates to around 26,400 to 23,200 years ago.

Anthropology

Baboons demonstrate social proficiency

Wild baboons exhibit a richer, more complex social life than scientists have often assumed, according to two new studies.

Anthropology

Baboons demonstrate social proficiency

Wild baboons exhibit a richer, more complex social life than scientists have often assumed, according to two new studies.

Anthropology

Anklebone kicks up primate debate

The discoverers of a roughly 40-million-year-old anklebone in Myanmar say that it supports the controversial theory that anthropoids, a primate group that includes monkeys, apes, and humans, originated in Asia.

Anthropology

Europe’s Iceman was a valley guy

The 5,200-year-old Iceman, whose mummified body was found 12 years ago in the Alps between Italy and Austria, spent his life in the valleys just south of where his body was found, according to chemical analyses of his remains.

Anthropology

Stone Age Code Red: Scarlet symbols emerge in Israeli cave

Lumps of red ocher excavated near human graves in an Israeli cave indicate that symbolic thinking occurred at least 90,000 years ago, much earlier than archaeologists have traditionally assumed.

Anthropology

Erectus Ahoy

A researcher who explores the nautical abilities of Stone Age people by building rafts and having crews row them across stretches of ocean contends that language and other cognitive advances emerged 900,000 years ago with Homo erectus, not considerably later among modern humans, as is usually assumed.

Anthropology

Y Trail of the First Americans: DNA data point to late New World entry

Scientists identified a gene variant on the Y chromosome that allowed them to estimate that people first reached the Americas no earlier than about 18,000 years ago.