Scientists read ancient DNA from South African hunter gatherers and found a very early human branch that shaped survival ...

Many of the ancient southern Africans, including those who lived between about 10,200 and 1,400 years ago, "fall outside the ...

On an expedition in the Awash Valley in Ethiopia, two anthropologists uncovered the bones of a 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor. The iconic "Lucy" fossil would reveal much about our species' ...

The museum’s groundbreaking Hall of Human Origins centers around the adaptations that set early humans apart Jack Tamisiea What does it mean to be human? This question, deceptively simple and imbued ...

At the heart of scientific questions about the origins of humanity lie questions of human nature. Are Homo sapiens intrinsically lovers or fighters, predators or prey, lucky survivors or inevitable ...

Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. In The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession With Human Origins, the intellectual historian Stefanos Geroulanos, ...

Silk is one of the most luxurious fabrics for clothing and bedding. Unlike cotton or linen, silk is made most commonly by insects—often the Bombyx mori, a domesticated moth that feeds on the leaves of ...

New research offers insight into the evolutionary history of amylase genes, which help us eat starchy food. Long before humans ate dinner rolls or french fries, our ancient ancestors carried genes ...

Humans have been an important driver of vegetation change over thousands of years, and, in some places, had positive impacts on biodiversity, according to a new study. Humans have been an important ...