More than 400,000 years ago—long before the rise of the first agricultural civilizations or even the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe—the human groups living in the Atapuerca mountains were already developing hunting strategies that, unintentionally, maintained a balance with their environment. A multidisciplinary team of Spanish researchers has discovered that the inhabitants of the […]
Paleoanthropology
Posted inScience
The origin of our mathematical ability to think in numbers dates back to Homo Erectus and even earlier
A recent study published in the journal L’anthropologie provides new data on one of the most fascinating mysteries of human evolution: how we developed mathematical thinking, that is, the ability to think in numbers. The research explores how our ancestors, from the earliest hominins to Homo sapiens, built the biological and cultural foundations that allow […]
Posted inScience
Historic Discovery: The Harbin Skull Solves the Mystery of What the Denisovans Looked Like
Over the past fifteen years, since the first remains of the Denisovans were discovered in the Denisova Cave in Siberia, one question has obsessed paleoanthropologists and geneticists alike: what did this group of hominins, whose genes still persist in present-day populations of East Asia and Oceania, physically look like? The scarcity of fossils—limited until now […]
Posted inStone Age Archaeology
The Earliest Use of Fire by Humans Was Not for Cooking but for Preserving Meat
A study from Tel Aviv University proposes the hypothesis that prehistoric humans’ control of fire was not initially intended for cooking, but rather for preserving meat through smoking and drying techniques, thus preventing its decomposition and protecting it from predators. The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, addresses one of the most persistent […]
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Babies from Two Million Years Ago Reveal a Common Ancestor to All Human Species Prior to the Quaternary Period
Thanks to a study that analyzed fossilized fragments of baby jaws dating back two million years, scientists are rewriting the beginnings of human history. The study, led by José Braga, a professor at the University of Toulouse, and Jacopo Moggi-Cecchi of the University of Florence, was published in Nature Communications, revealing a much greater diversity […]
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For the first time, scientists manage to identify the biological sex of human ancestors from two million years ago
A team of European and African researchers used a method known as paleoproteomics to recover fragments of proteins from the tooth enamel of four fossilized teeth found in the Swartkrans cave in South Africa, which belonged to an early human called Paranthropus robustus. They used cutting-edge mass spectrometry techniques to partially reconstruct the sequences of […]
Posted inScience, Stone Age Archaeology
Precise Timeline Reconstructed for When Denisovans, Neanderthals, and Homo sapiens Inhabited Denisova Cave Over 300,000 Years
In the Altai Mountains, in southern Siberia, lies the famous Denisova Cave, the only place in the world where the presence of three distinct types of humans has been demonstrated: Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans. A new study, published in Nature Communications, has managed to reconstruct in unprecedented detail the complete history of the cave […]
Posted inPrehistory, Science
How European Hunter-Gatherers Survived Climate Change 12,000 Years Ago
A new archaeological investigation led by the University of Cologne has revealed how hunter-gatherer populations in Europe faced an extreme climate event over twelve millennia ago. And what scientists found could change our understanding of human adaptation in times of crisis. During the Late Paleolithic, a period that spans approximately from 14,000 to 11,600 years […]
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Homo sapiens Emerged from the Union of Two Mysterious Populations Before Neanderthals and Denisovans 300,000 Years Ago
For decades, the predominant view of human evolution held that Homo sapiens emerged in Africa between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago, descending from a single ancestral lineage. However, recent research from the University of Cambridge has challenged this perspective, suggesting a far more intricate evolutionary history than previously thought. Based on an advanced analysis of […]
Posted inStone Age Archaeology
A Facial Fragment of Homo affinis erectus Found in Atapuerca Is the Oldest “Human Face” in Western Europe
The Sima del Elefante site, in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain), has once again been the scene of an extraordinary discovery. A team of researchers has identified a human facial fragment dated between 1.1 and 1.4 million years old, making it the oldest face ever discovered in Western Europe. This discovery, led by IPHES-CERCA […]
