A mystery that started with the discovery of a pinkie finger bone in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia may finally have been cracked.

Scientists have reconstructed the head of an ancient human relative from 1.5 million year-old fossilized bones and teeth. But the face staring back is complicating scientists' understanding of early ...

In paleoanthropology, a rare, nearly-complete skeleton can rewrite entire chapters of the human origin story. The “Little ...

Over a century ago, anthropologist Raymond Dart chipped an ancient skull out of some rock from an ancient quarry — and revealed the face of an ancient human relative.

A 1.6-million-year-old Ethiopian skull blends ancestor and descendant features, rewriting the origin story of Homo erectus.

Humans were living in rainforests roughly 150,000 years ago, some 80,000 years earlier than was previously thought—and may have been an important center for early human evolution. This is the ...

National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek is retracing the path of human migration. More specifically, the scientific ...

Researchers found that ancient hominids—including early humans—were exposed to lead throughout childhood, leaving chemical traces in fossil teeth. Experiments suggest this exposure may have driven ...

The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

One hundred years ago, a small town in eastern Tennessee captured the attention of the entire country. A biology teacher in Dayton was accused of teaching human evolution to his students — which was ...