Tag archives for human origins
One hundred years ago today human beings knew very little about our ancient origins. Because of the life and example of Mary Leakey, we know ourselves better now, and continue to learn more every day.
Posted by PET/GUE Divers descend into the abyss at Hoyo Negro. Photo by Daniel Riordan-Araujo By Fabio Esteban Amador Explorers have discovered what might be the oldest evidence of humans in the Americas. Alex Alvarez, Franco Attolini, and Alberto (Beto) Nava are members of PET (Projecto Espeleológico de Tulum), an organization that specializes in the exploration…
By Andrew Howley Ever since the 1940s, the “modern synthesis” has presented evolution as the result of random mutations to DNA creating altered versions of living creatures that live and reproduce or die childless based on how well they happen to fit into their environment. This idea has served well in many ways for the…
International researchers led by ancient DNA experts from the University of Adelaide, Australia, said today that they had settled the longstanding issue of the origins of the people who introduced farming to Europe some 8,000 years ago. DNA carefully extracted from a complete graveyard of Early Neolithic farmers unearthed at the town of Derenburg in…
Cracking the Code in the Rocks
Posted by Andrew Howley of NG Staff on September 10, 2010 On the fourth day of the International Federation of Rock Art Organizations (IFRAO) conference, National Geographic Digital Media’s Andrew Howley learns from experts how ancient wall paintings can be deciphered to tell something about the Stone Age artists who made them. Tarascon-sur-Ariège, France–The iconic images of bison, deer, and mammoths are what draw many people…
Walking Into the Stone Age
Posted by Andrew Howley of NG Staff on September 9, 2010 On the third day of an international conference in France of experts on prehistoric rock art, National Geographic Digital Media senior producer Andrew Howley makes his first visit into caves adorned with images painted 13,000 years ago. Tarascon-sur-Ariège, France–Today the laptops were shut and the projectors powered down, as the participants in the IFRAO conference…
Mysteries of Prehistoric Rock Art Probed
Posted by Andrew Howley of NG Staff on September 7, 2010 Ancient people the world over illustrated rock walls with paintings or carvings evocative of their environment and belief systems. But even as we begin to understand more about the rock artists and the images they left us, new questions about their eternal messages are being raised. Tarascon-sur-Ariège, France–On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the…
A remarkable new discovery redates the evolutionary split between the Old World monkeys and the ape-human lineage. By Hans-Dieter Sues The higher primates of the Old World (Catarrhini) are divided into two major lineages, one comprising the living monkeys of Africa, Asia, and Europe and their fossil relatives (Cercopithecoidea), and the other, humans, great apes,…
By Jeremy A. Kaplan (FOXNews.com) In May scientists finished mapping the genes of the Neanderthal and determined that as much as 4 percent of those genes are in people today [Neanderthals, Humans Interbred--First Solid DNA Evidence]. Now one company has unveiled a test to determine just how much Neanderthal is inside you. Sort of. The…
By Leon Marshall Intermittent blasts of gas-fired burner break the early morning still as our hot air balloon lifts and starts to glide gently on the air currents above hilly grasslands crossed here and there by bushy gullies. A few times we hear wildebeest grunt, and from behind a rocky outcrop come the unmistakable croaks…
As we observe the 150th anniversary this month of the first publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, a new book reviews evolution and ranks the top one hundred most influential species of all time. Homo sapiens is not at the top of the list. In fact, we humans, who like to imagine…
A 37-million-year-old fossil primate from Egypt, described in this week’s issue of Nature, moves a controversial German fossil known as Ida out of the human lineage, Nature News reports. “Teeth and ankle bones of the new Egyptian specimen show that the 47-million-year-old Ida, formally called Darwinius masillae, is not in the lineage of early apes and monkeys…
Our ancestors underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution over more than a million years before “Lucy”, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago,” National Geographic Magazine science editor Jamie Shreeve reports today. The finding, published in tomorrow’s journal Science, is based on the discovery of the oldest…
Last seen two million years ago, one of the early stone tools discovered in Wonderwerk Cave. Photo by M. Chazan The earliest evidence for cave occupation by hominids has been discovered in South Africa. Stone tools found at the bottom level of Wonderwerk Cave show that human ancestors were in the cave two million years ago,…
Rock art photos and map courtesy Jack Pettigrew, University of Queensland Rock art painted in an Australian cave many thousands of years ago depicts flying foxes not found in modern Australia, scientists report in the December issue of the journal Antiquity. Fossilized remains of a wasp nest overlying the art tested to be 17,500 years…
The soul of a royal official in the service of King Panamuwa of the eighth century B.C. was believed to reside in this carved stone. Photo by Eudora Struble, University of Chicago Archaeologists in southeastern Turkey have discovered an Iron Age chiseled stone slab that provides the first written evidence in the region that people…
Illustration by Roy Andersen/NGS The ability to make fire was likely a key factor in the migration of prehistoric hominids from Africa into Eurasia, a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology reported today. Excavations at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov archaeological site in Israel showed that the occupants of the site —…
People who colonized the Caribbean from South America about 1,500 years ago brought with them heirloom drug paraphernalia that had been passed down from generation to generation, anthropologists propose. Ceramic inhaling bowls found on the island of Carriacou, in the West Indies, date back to between roughly 400 and 100 B.C, according to a study headed by…
Reconstruction by Kennis & Kennis/Photo by Joe McNally/NGS Meet Wilma, the first reconstruction of a Neanderthal created using evidence from fossil anatomy and ancient DNA. Neanderthals were a species of human that became extinct 28,000 years ago. The lifesize model was created to illustrate “The Last of the Neanderthals,” the cover article in the October…
Three-dimensional computer-assisted reconstructions of Neanderthal infants based on fossils found in Russia and Syria (left) suggests that our closest human relatives had brains as large as ours at birth and larger than ours as adults. The finding indicates that we and the Neanderthals inherited the pattern of early brain size and development from a yet unknown…
