The textbook version of the "Out of Africa" hypothesis holds that the first human species to leave the continent around 1.8 million years ago was Homo erectus. But in recent years, a debate has ...

Early, ancestral members of the human lineage may have left Africa earlier than widely thought, a new study of fossil teeth suggests. Modern humans, Homo sapiens, are the only living member of the ...

One of the most complete human ancestor fossils ever found could be an entirely new species, according to a new study. The fossil, found in South Africa’s Sterkfontein Caves in 1998 and dubbed “the ...

Scientists have digitally reconstructed the face of a 1.5-million-year-old Homo erectus fossil from Ethiopia, uncovering an unexpectedly primitive appearance. While its braincase fits with classic ...

Many known hominin fossils defy species classification, with the most famous example being the ever-enigmatic Denisovans. A study by anthropologists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, Rice University (THE CONVERSATION) Almost 2 million years ...

A digital reconstruction of a one-million-year old skull in China called Yunxian 2 suggested that our species started to emerge half a million years earlier than previously believed, according to a ...