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

Another twist has been added to the puzzling mix that is early human ancestry with evidence that one of the most complete pre ...

An international study led by researchers from Australia's La Trobe University and the University of Cambridge has challenged ...

Australopithecus is an extinct group of ape-like modern human relatives—or potentially ancestors—that walked upright and ...

Learn how a new analysis challenges the traditional classifications for ‘Little Foot,’ a famous fossil hominin from South ...

Australian researchers think the skeleton found in South Africa is not the same species as two found in the same South Africa cave system ...

Fossils found in Georgia challenge existing theories of human origins, suggesting two early human species coexisted at the Dmanisi site.

A newly reconstructed fossil face from Ethiopia reveals surprising complexity in early human evolution. By digitally fitting together teeth and fossilized bone fragments, researchers reconstructed a ...

Human footprints stir the imagination. They invite you to follow, to guess what someone was doing and where they were going. Fossilized footprints preserved in rock do the same – they record instants ...

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide expert advice on some of the most pressing challenges facing the nation and world. Our ...

The first evidence of human relatives walking on two feet comes from about 70 footprints left by at least two Australopithecus afarensis walking across soft volcanic ash about 3.6 million years ago. A ...