A new study of six Homo erectus individuals from China reveals one amino acid variant that distinguished this archaic human from all other human lineages and one that it passed on to modern humans via ...

Africa has long been known as the cradle of humanity. Fossils, tools and genetics all point there. Yet the deeper story of how the first modern humans lived, moved and mixed has stayed blurry. Too ...

A handful of ancient teeth from China are giving scientists an unusual look at one of the hardest chapters in human evolution to read. For decades, Homo erectus has stood at the center of that mystery ...

All humans today are members of the modern human species Homo sapiens — Latin for "knowing man." But we're far from the only humans who ever existed. Fossils are revealing more and more about early ...

Modern humans are evolutionary survivors, thriving generation after generation while our ancient relatives died out. Now, new research into our brain chemistry suggests that an enzyme unique to Homo ...

Momentous encounters -- Neanderthal ancestors -- Neanderthals and their world -- The quiet people -- The ten thousandth grandmother -- Great mobility -- The realm of the Lion Man -- Fat, flints, and ...

When Neanderthals and modern humans first got together, they preferred pairings between Neanderthal men and human women, a new study of ancient and modern genomes suggests. The finding helps to ...

In a first-of-its-kind finding, researchers at University of Iowa Health Care discovered that specific genetic sequences have an outsized impact on humans’ language abilities and that these sequences ...

Not every modern human has the same set of Neanderthal DNA, however; different people will, by chance, have inherited different fragments. But there are also some areas, termed “Neanderthal deserts,” ...