Tag: Ancestors
How archaeologist created a prehistoric GPS for tracking ancient humans
Where's the best place to start when retracing the life of a person who lived 4,000 years ago? Turns out, it's simple -- you...
Fossil bee nest provides clues about the environment of human ancestor
Analysis of the first fossil bee nest from the Plio-Pleistocene of South Africa suggests that the human ancestor Australopithecus africanus lived in a dry...
Ancestor of arthropods had the mouth of a penis worm
Imagine a meter long worm with 12 stubby legs and matching sets of flaps running down the body. On the head is a large...
Researchers identify oldest textile dyed indigo, reflecting scientific knowledge from 6,200...
A George Washington University researcher has identified a 6,200-year-old indigo-blue fabric from Huaca, Peru, making it one of the oldest-known cotton textiles in the...
Our ancestors evolved faster after dinosaur extinction
Our ancestors evolved three times faster in the 10 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs than in the previous 80 million years,...
Likely ancestor of mystery ‘hobbit’ found
Half-sized humans who lived 700,000 years ago were almost certainly the ancestors of enigmatic "hobbits" whose fossils were found on the same Indonesian isle...
Lucy had neighbors: A review of African fossils
If "Lucy" wasn't alone, who else was in her neighborhood? Key fossil discoveries over the last few decades in Africa indicate that multiple early...
Human Evolution: A 24-million-year record of African plants plumbs deep past
Buried deep in seabed sediments off east Africa, scientists have uncovered a 24-million-year record of vegetation trends in the region where humans evolved. The...
Bigger brains led to bigger bodies in our ancestors
New research suggests that humans became the large-brained, large-bodied animals we are today because of natural selection to increase brain size. The work, published...
Early human ancestors used their hands like modern humans
New research suggests pre-Homo human ancestral species, such as Australopithecus africanus, used human-like hand postures much earlier than was previously thought.
Anthropologists from the University...
Two-faced fish clue that our ancestors ‘weren’t shark-like’
An investigation of a 415 million year-old fish skull strongly suggests that the last common ancestor of all jawed vertebrates, including humans, was not...
Earliest ancestor of land herbivores discovered
New research from the University of Toronto Mississauga demonstrates how carnivores transitioned into herbivores for the first time on land.
"The evolution of herbivory was...
