Archaeologists have found an object in a quiet rock shelter in Segovia, Spain, that questions accepted wisdom regarding Neanderthal cognition: a granite pebble with a red ochre dot and a clearly identifiable Neanderthal man fingerprint. More than just an old fingerprint, this discovery dated to 43,000 years is a tantalizing clue that Neanderthals might have ...
For decades, the story of human evolution has been pieced together from fragments of fossilized bones, stone tools, and, more recently, ancient DNA. But what happens when DNA degrades beyond recovery, leaving scientists with only enamel and dentin to decode the secrets of our ancestors? A groundbreaking new study has cracked the code, using proteins ...
From the bones of individuals living 6,000 years ago deep in Colombia’s highlands, a genetic mystery has emerged. Their DNA tells a different story than any other one without clear ancestors or descendants in the modern society. These prehistoric people unearthed on the Bogotá Altiplano challenge our understanding of American population distribution. Whales: they were ...
The Denisovans, a deeply mysterious branch of the human family tree, have obsessed researchers across the globe for decades. Except for a finger bone discovered in Siberia, some teeth found in Tibet, and strands of DNA found in modern humans, they were virtually unknown. Now, an astonishing discovery in the form of a jawbone found ...
