Human

Archaeologists in Ecuador have made a fascinating and grisly discovery. In a burial mound dating back 2,100 years, the scientists found signs of a ritual never seen before – two babies buried wearing “helmets” made of the skulls of other children.

Combining studies of genetics, geology and climate history, scientists from Australia and South Africa say they’ve identified what could be called the “homeland” of modern humans – a vast, ancient wetland system in southern Africa.

The latest update to the human migration story comes from the Greek island of Naxos, where new archaeological finds show that humans and Neanderthals have occupied the site for around 200,000 years – far earlier than previously believed.

Researchers have managed to reconstruct a Denisovan face for the first time, using DNA methylation mapping techniques.

An almost-complete skull of Australopithecus anamensis allowed scientists to realistically recreate its face for the first time.

Archaeologists have found ancient tools at a dig site in Mongolia, indicating that humans were on the scene about 45,000 years ago, which is much earlier than current evidence suggests. There’s also a chance that the site is one spot where our ancestors mingled with the mysterious Denisovans.

Cardiovascular diseases are the number one killer in the world – and we might have a two million year old ancestor to blame. A team pinpointed a single gene that ancient ancestors lost, which appears to have predisposed us as a species towards higher rates of atherosclerosis than other apes.

The human genome can tell us where we’ve come from, and it’s hiding more than a few surprises. Now researchers from the University of Adelaide have found evidence of two unknown, archaic human species in modern DNA.

Fossilized human skulls found in a cave in Greece may force a rewrite of the human migration timeline yet again. Archaeologists have dated one of the skulls to about 210,000 years old – roughly 150,000 years older than the previous record-holder for earliest modern human remains in Europe.

While exploring the “dark heart” of the human genome, geneticists have now found some of the most ancient pieces of DNA, inherited from Neanderthals and an as-yet-unknown human relative, which may be affecting our sense of smell to this day.

It’s not known exactly when humans and Neanderthals split off from their last common ancestor, but the estimated window is very wide, between 300,000 and 800,000 years ago. Now a new study has found evidence that this split took place towards the earlier end of that range, or even longer ago still.

A fossilized jawbone discovered on the Tibetan Plateau has been found to belong to a Denisovan, an enigmatic early human species closely related to Neanderthals. Its age suggests that Denisovans were the first hominins to occupy the area, long before the arrival of modern humans.