A groundbreaking international study changes the view that exposure to the toxic metal lead is largely a post-industrial phenomenon. The research reveals that our human ancestors were periodically ...

Modern humans descended from not one, but at least two ancestral populations that drifted apart and later reconnected, long before modern humans spread across the globe. Using advanced analysis based ...

New research has revealed an incredible discovery: modern humans carry 20% of their genetic material from a mysterious population that split from our ancestors 1.5 million years ago. This study ...

A collection of bones from Casablanca holds important new clues to the origins of modern humans and Neanderthals.

Life on Earth began in a way that still boggles the mind. Around 4.5 billion years ago, a chemical process called abiogenesis occurred, where life emerged from non-life. Imagine a hot, watery mix of ...

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 ...

Many people hold the view that evolution in humans has come to a halt. But while modern medicine and technologies have changed the environment in which evolution operates, many scientists are in ...

John Gowlett receives funding from PAST Africa and Wenner-Gren Foundation, and his work has previously been supported by The Leverhulme Trust. He is associated with a new series of podcasts on human ...

Two of the traits that set modern humans apart from non-human primates are taller stature and a higher basal metabolic rate. Researchers have identified a genetic variant that contributed to the ...

Our species, Homo sapiens, has been evolving for more than 300,000 years, but the story of human origins starts much earlier.