The textbook version of the "Out of Africa" hypothesis holds that the first human species to leave the continent around 1.8 ...

Important, previously unrecognized genetic changes common to all ancient and modern Homo sapiens spread in Africa more than 300,000 years ago, a new study finds. After that, the same investigation ...

Ancient DNA is finally putting hard numbers on a mystery that has trailed humanity for millennia: when our most familiar ...

Cats were domesticated in North Africa, but spread to Europe only about 2,000 years ago. Earlier reports of “house” cats were ...

Scientists read ancient DNA from South African hunter gatherers and found a very early human branch that shaped survival traits.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - DNA extracted from the skull of a man buried 4,500 years ago in an Ethiopian cave is providing new clarity on the ancestry of modern Africans as well as shedding light on an ...

The magic of myths -- Meet the ancient Africans -- One continent, many worlds -- The cradle of humanity -- Gods and spirits -- In touch with the spirit world -- Timeless tales of ancient Africa -- A ...

A major genetic study suggests that all living humans may trace their ancestry back to three African hunter-gatherer populations that dispersed between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago. By combining ...

Every so often, a pandemic emerges that dramatically alters human society. The Black Death (1347 - 1351) was one; the Spanish flu of 1918 was another. Now there’s COVID-19. Archaeologists have long ...

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 ...

This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute, part of ...