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Anthropology

Researchers find that long thumbs in primates are consistently associated with big brains.

This Is What Our Thumbs Say About Our Brains, in a Pattern That Holds True for Other Primates

Researchers have found a link between long thumbs and big brains, suggesting the two features evolved together

Left molars from the newly discovered Australopithecus specimen (top) compared to those of an A. afarensis (bottom)

Cool Finds

Researchers Discover Fossilized Teeth That May Have Come From an Unknown Hominin Species

The find suggests that as many as four different hominin lineages lived in eastern Africa between 2.5 million and 3 million years ago

Throughout time, women and children have processed food on a daily basis, playing a central role in the story of human survival and evolution.

Through Much of Human History, Women Have Shaped Evolution Through Food Processing

An anthropologist highlights the revolutionary role of the practice, which was often led by women, and was just as crucial to surviving and thriving as hunting

New research suggests Neanderthals ate rotten flesh and maggots, explaining why the levels of nitrogen-15 found in their remains are so high.

Neanderthals Might Have Eaten Maggot-Infested, Putrefying Meat, Explaining a Mysterious Chemical Signature in Their Remains

Maggots might have helped our long-extinct relatives avoid protein poisoning by providing a nutritious source of fat, a new study suggests

Researchers suggest 140,000-year-old child remains from Israel's Skhūl Cave may have belonged to a Homo sapiens-Neanderthal hybrid.

A Child’s Skull That Has Long Confounded Archaeologists Might Be a Human-Neanderthal Hybrid, Study Suggests

According to new CT scans and models, parts of the 140,000-year-old skull resemble those of modern humans, while the jaw appears to be more similar to those of our extinct relatives

The new study analyzed 131 skeletons dated to between 7100 and 5950 B.C.E.

Ancient DNA Reveals That Men Moved in With Their Brides’ Families in This Neolithic Settlement

A new study suggests that a 9,000-year-old society in Catalhoyuk, a proto-city in southern Anatolia, may have established a “female-centered” social structure

Carl Hagenbeck opened his Tierpark Hagenbeck in Hamburg, Germany, in 1907. Decades earlier, the impresario had exhibited Indigenous humans in conditions that replicated their home environments.

The Man Who Invented the Modern Zoo Tested Out His Ideas on People First

Carl Hagenbeck believed that animals should be housed in habitats that mimicked their natural environment. Earlier, he’d followed the same guiding philosophy when exhibiting Indigenous people in “human zoos”

The Nazca Lines were made around two millennia ago. 

Nearly Half of the Protected Land Around the Nazca Lines of Peru Is Now Open to Miners

Some environmentalists are concerned about mining operations drawing closer to the ancient landmarks

This skull of a 1.8-million-year-old Paranthropus robustus individual was unearthed in South Africa, but it was not one of the fossils included in the study.

Scientists Investigate 2.2-Million-Year-Old Tooth Enamel to Unravel the Mysteries of Ancient Human Relatives

By studying proteins preserved in teeth, researchers determined the sex of four Paranthropus robustus individuals that lived in southern Africa

A howler monkey infant, only a few days old, clings to a subadult white-faced capuchin monkey as it uses tools.

Capuchin Monkeys Caught on Camera ‘Abducting’ Baby Howler Monkeys in a Strange Tradition Seen for the First Time

Scientists on Panama’s Jicarón Island were mystified by photos and videos of young male capuchins carrying howler monkeys on their backs for days at a time

The obelisk once stood outside a temple in Luxor, Egypt.

Cool Finds

Egyptologist Reveals Mysterious Messages Hidden in the Hieroglyphics on a 3,000-Year-Old Obelisk

Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier says he has identified seven sets of crypto-hieroglyphs on the 75-foot-tall structure, which France received as a gift in 1836

A reconstruction of a Neanderthal man in the Natural History Museum, Vienna. A new study suggests Neanderthals could not adapt to a period of increased radiation as well as early modern humans did.

Sunscreen, Clothing and Caves May Have Given Modern Humans an Edge Over Neanderthals When Earth’s Magnetic Field Wandered

A new study suggests the extinction of Neanderthals nearly coincided with a shift in Earth’s magnetic field that let more radiation reach the ground. Our species might have adapted more easily

A young bonobo female responds to group members.

There Might Be Something Human in the Way Bonobos Communicate—Their Calls Share a Key Trait With Our Language, Study Suggests

Researchers attempted to decode bonobo calls by recording their social context, then analyzed how the primates string together these vocalizations

Researchers discovered the facial fragments in a cave in northern Spain.

New Research

Researchers Unearth Oldest Known Human Facial Bones Ever Found in Western Europe

The upper jawbone and partial cheek bone represent a mysterious unknown species that lived in present-day Spain between 1.1 million and 1.4 million years ago, according to a new study

This lidar scan shows the epicenter of the city, where its largest buildings stood.

Cool Finds

Researchers Thought It Was Just a Fortress. It Turned Out to Be a Lost Zapotec City

Lidar scans have revealed a 600-year-old fortified city in southern Mexico that boasted ball courts, roads, neighborhoods and temples

The curious qualities of laughter can surprise, delight or even silence.

Why Does Laughter Have Such a Strange Power Over Us?

An anthropologist explores why the phenomenon has the ability to delight, disturb and disrupt

Nyota, a 25-year-old male bonobo at Ape Initiative in Iowa, participated in the study.

When Bonobos Know What You Don’t, They’ll Tell You. It’s a Sign of a Cognitive Ability Called ‘Theory of Mind’

A first-of-its-kind study suggests bonobos, like humans, can understand someone else’s lack of knowledge—and adjust their actions accordingly

The papyrus dates back to between 129 and 132 C.E.

Researchers Have Deciphered a Nearly 2,000-Year-Old True Crime Papyrus

The Greek document details a court case in ancient Palestine involving tax fraud and provides insight into trial preparations in the Roman Empire

A young chimpanzee looks on during an outing to an island in the Douala-Edea National Park in Cameroon, on December 15, 2024.

From Chimps Eating Medicinal Plants to Footprints Tracking Our Early Relatives, Here Are the Most Significant Human Evolution Discoveries of 2024

Smithsonian paleoanthropologists explore how the year brought us closer to understanding ancient human relatives and origins

The carved boulder, which weighs about 60 pounds and measures less than a foot across, “may have represented a totem or a mythological or spiritual figure,” says archaeologist Omry Barzilai.

Cool Finds

A Mysterious Boulder Carved to Look Like a Tortoise Shell May Offer Evidence of the Middle East’s Earliest Ritual Ceremonies

The 35,000-year-old rock was found in Manot Cave, which was inhabited by both prehistoric humans and Neanderthals

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