News tagged with early humans

Ancient network of rivers and lakes found in Arabian Desert

(Phys.org) -- Satellite images have revealed that a network of ancient rivers once coursed their way through the sand of the Arabian Desert, leading scientists to believe that the region experienced wetter ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 01, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

Meat eating led to earlier weaning, helped humans spread across globe

When early humans became carnivores, their higher-quality diet allowed mothers to wean babies earlier and have more children, with potentially profound effects on population dynamics and the course of human evolution, according ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Apr 18, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Cutting through ancient evidence of human tool use

The earliest evidence of human tool use may be written on the bones of other animals, but in order to produce reliable conclusions, researchers are calling for improved tools and analysis, including an easy-to-access ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Apr 06, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Team seeks to learn how humans adapt to high places

How did early humans learn to live at the highest altitudes on earth?

Biology / Other

created Feb 15, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Neanderthal demise due to many influences, including cultural changes: study

As an ice age crept upon them thousands of years ago, Neanderthals and modern human ancestors expanded their territory ranges across Asia and Europe to adapt to the changing environment.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Feb 07, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (6) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

MtDNA tests trace all modern horses back to single ancestor 140,000 years ago

(PhysOrg.com) -- For many years archeologists and other scientists have debated the origins of the domesticated horse. Nailing down a time frame is important because many historians view the relationship between ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jan 31, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 4 | with audio podcast report

Neanderthals and their contemporaries engineered stone tools

(PhysOrg.com) -- New published research from anthropologists at the University of Kent has scientifically supported for the first time the long held theory that early human ancestors across Africa, Western ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Jan 24, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (7) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Endangered orangutans offer a new evolutionary model for early humans

Starving orangutans in Borneo may be teaching us new lessons about human evolution.

Biology / Evolution

created Dec 13, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 1

New model suggests early humans lost fur after developing bipedalism

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two of the most basic questions in the study of human evolution revolve around why early people started walking around on two feet instead of four and why they lost their fur, especially in ...

Biology / Evolution

created Dec 13, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 2 | with audio podcast report

15 new conservation concerns

A review carried out by a group of international specialists has identified several emerging issues that are likely to damage biodiversity in the coming years.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 12, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Trail of 'stone breadcrumbs' reveals the identity of one of the first human groups to leave Africa

A series of new archaeological discoveries in the Sultanate of Oman, nestled in the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, reveals the timing and identity of one of the first modern human groups to migrate out of Africa, ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Nov 30, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

'Look at that!' -- ravens use gestures, too

Pointing and holding up objects in order to attract attention has so far only been observed in humans and our closest living relatives, the great apes. Simone Pika from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and Thomas ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 29, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Johnny Rotten's graffiti: The new heritage?

(PhysOrg.com) -- Archaeologists typically record and analyse the traces of past human activities. The caves of Lascaux in southern France are celebrated as a place where early humans made their marks on cave ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Nov 21, 2011 | popularity 1.7 / 5 (6) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Rendezvous with a near Earth object

(PhysOrg.com) -- One of the most accessible goals for human spaceflight is a rendezvous with a Near Earth Object (NEO). NEOs are asteroids or comets whose orbits take them close to the earth's orbit. An NEO ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Oct 25, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1

Modern humans interbred with more archaic hominin forms even before they migrated out of Africa: study

It is now widely accepted that the species Homo sapiens originated in Africa and eventually spread throughout the world. But did those early humans interbreed with more ancestral forms of the genus Homo, for ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Sep 05, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (14) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

Homo (genus)

Homo sapiens See text for extinct species.

Homo is the genus that includes modern humans and their close relatives. The genus is estimated to be about 2.5 million years old, evolving from Australopithecine ancestors with the appearance of Homo habilis. Appearance of Homo coincides with the first evidence of stone tools (the Oldowan industry), and thus by definition with the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic.

All species except Homo sapiens (modern humans) are extinct. Homo neanderthalensis, traditionally considered the last surviving relative, died out 24,000 years ago, while a recent discovery suggests that another species, Homo floresiensis, may have lived as recently as 12,000 years ago. Given the large number of morphological similarities exhibited, Homo is closely related to several extinct hominin genera, most notably Kenyanthropus, Paranthropus and Australopithecus. As of 2007[update], no taxon is universally accepted as the origin of the radiation of Homo.

For more information about Homo (genus), read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.