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Human Origins

Behaviors requiring the most pressure were smashing bones for marrow and producing flint flakes

Did the Human Hand Evolve as a Lean Mean Bone-Smashing Machine?

Of nearly 40 things Pleistocene people might have done with their hands, getting to yummy marrow requires the most force and dexterity

New Research

Oldest Stone Tools Outside Africa Unearthed in China

Six artifacts date to 2.1 million years ago, potentially rewriting what we know about which species led the migration out of Africa

New Research

Pink Was the First Color of Life on Earth

Researchers have found bright pink pigments in 1.1 billion year old fossils of cyanobacteria drilled in West Africa

The foot bones of an Australopithecus Afarensis toddler show that the species retained some ape-like traits.

New Research

Ancient Toddler Was at Home on the Ground and in the Trees

The foot of a 2.5-year-old Austrolopithecus afarensis shows it had a grippy big toe that let it cling to its mom and climb tree trunks

Coming together for a solstice feast in ancient Peru.

How Feasting Rituals Help Shape Human Civilization

These transformative practices—and the cooperation they require—are a cornerstone of societies the world over

Contrary to popular beliefs, Neanderthals lived in complex societies and hunted prey cooperatively.

New Research

Neanderthals Hunted in Groups, One More Strike Against the Dumb Brute Myth

The skeletons of deer killed 120,000 years ago offer more evidence of cooperative behavior and risk-taking among our hominin relatives

New Research

New Evidence Shows That Humans Could Have Migrated to the Americas Along the Coast

Dating of rocks and animal bones shows Alaska’s coast was glacier free around 17,000 years ago, allowing people to move south along the coast

The Startling Alternative Theory of How Humans Arrived in America

On an island off the east coast of Maryland, a stone spearpoint sticking out of a coastal cliff stuns archaeologists

Terrifying Mammals That May Have Greeted Early Humans in America

Arriving in the Chesapeake Bay, the early American inhabitants’ first order of business would have been to craft weapons to defend themselves

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Uncover 20,000-Year-Old Kangaroo Cook Out

The site in Pilbara is one of many helping to define human movements in Australia

Panga ya Saidi

New Research

People Lived in This Cave for 78,000 Years

Excavations in Panga ya Saidi suggest technological and cultural change came slowly over time and show early humans weren’t reliant on coastal resources

Though the differences between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens may seem pronounced, scientists didn't always embrace the idea that humans evolved from other species.

How Do Scientists Identify New Species? For Neanderthals, It Was All About Timing and Luck

Even the most remarkable fossil find means nothing if scientists aren’t ready to see it for what it is

The butchered rhino

New Research

700,000-Year-Old Butchered Rhino Pushes Back Ancient Human Arrival in the Philippines

The find changes the story of human migration, but scientists still don’t know what human species did the cutting

Cool Finds

Fossil Tracks May Record Ancient Humans Hunting Giant Sloths

The tracks suggest a human—perhaps in search of food—closely followed the movements of the massive creature

New Research

Did a Prehistoric Surgeon Practice on This Cow?

Though an early human likely created the hole, the reason why remains less clear

Human evolution is “one of the highest hurdles — if not the highest hurdle — to science education in America,” says Smithsonian's Rick Potts. Here, an early human fossil found in Broken Hill, Zambia.

How to Talk With Evangelicals About Evolution

For two years, researchers from the Smithsonian traveled the country explaining the science of our shared origins

Expressive Eyebrows May Have Given Modern Humans an Evolutionary Edge

A new study explores why ancient humans had pronounced brow ridges, and why they eventually lost them

Several views of a fossilized finger bone found Al Wusta site, Saudi Arabia.

New Research

Rare 85,000-year-old Finger Bone Complicates Our Understanding of African Migration

The fossil builds on the theory that humans left Africa in multiple waves, and suggests they made it as far as the Arabian Desert

These black- and red-colored pigments reveal that humans were using pigments, potentially to communicate status or identity, by around 300,000 years ago.

New Research

Colored Pigments and Complex Tools Suggest Humans Were Trading 100,000 Years Earlier Than Previously Believed

Transformations in climate and landscape may have spurred these key technological innovations

New Research

Ancient Humans Weathered the Toba Supervolcano Just Fine

New studies suggest the largest eruption in the last 2 million years didn’t push humanity to the edge of extinction as previously hypothesized

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