The Blockbuster Exhibit That Shouldn’t Have Been

Museum curators have occasionally embellished archaeological finds with compelling but questionable stories. Consider the Field Museum’s “Magdalenian Girl.”

How Human Are We?

An evolutionary theorist considers how traits we think of as human may have been shared by other hominins.

What Drove Homo Erectus Out of Africa?

Excavations at the site of ‘Ubeidiya are at the heart of a debate about Homo erectus migrations, with profound implications for questions of human resilience and adaptability.

Five Human Species You May Not Know About

Homo sapiens is currently the only member of the genus Homo alive. There’s only one species of human—but it wasn’t always so.

Is Homo longi an Extinct Human Species?

A newly analyzed skull from northeastern China may signal a species that had closer ties to us than Neanderthals.

Five Ways Humans Evolved to be Athletes
An archaeologist explores human athletic paleobiology to explain how our prowess in sport has deep roots in evolution.
How Apes Reveal Human History

Great apes provide a window into the story of human evolution—and that’s one more reason to protect them.

Mapping Human and Neanderthal Genomes

The Human Genome Project first published the modern human genome 20 years ago, and the Neanderthal genome was sequenced a little more than a decade ago. What do these maps mean for our understanding of humanity?

Climate Change May Have Been a Major Driver of Ancient Hominin Extinctions

A new study suggests at least two close relatives of Homo sapiens may have died out as their environments changed.

Ancient Humans Used Fire to Make Stone Tools
A new study, borrowing techniques from artificial intelligence research, suggests hominins in the eastern Mediterranean used heat from fire in manufacturing flint blades.