Social Media Ideas for Human Beginnings

Biggest Jump In Body Size Among Our Ancestors Happened Around 2 To 2.5 Million Years Ago

Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - Our ancestors experienced the largest increase in body size about 2 to 2.5 million years ago, when Homo rudolfensis or Homo erectus/ergaster appeare...

Ancient human ancestors may have first used fire 1.79 million years ago

A new method that detects whether bones have been burned reveals Homo erectus brought fires into caves far earlier than previous evidence had suggested

Early humans were bringing fire into caves 1.8 million years ago

A new study suggests early humans were using fire in South Africa’s Wonderwerk Cave as far back as 1.79 million years ago. Researchers found burned bones deep inside the cave, wher...

Once Thought Difficult to Identify, a Subtle Mark on an Ancient Femur May Help Track the Start of Women's Reprod...

Learn more about menarche, a mark on an ancient femur bone, and how it can help us understand the reproductive beginnings of ancient women. 

For The First Time, Ancient Human DNA Has Been Found Preserved on Cave Walls

"This is just the beginning." ScienceAlert stories are written, fact-checked, and edited by humans, never generated by AI. Don't miss a story, subscribe here.

Human Ancestors Suddenly Got Bigger Around 2 Million Years Ago — With Average Body Size Jumping From 88 to 132...

Learn how fossils show human ancestors did not grow bigger in a straight line, but split into larger and smaller evolutionary paths.

Bigger Brains, Smaller Faces: Rethinking Human Evolution

Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - A new study challenges established views on human skull evolution. Researchers suggest that brain growth and the reduction of the face and jaw may b...

Lost for 150,000 years: Rainforest discovery upends human history

For decades, scientists believed ancient humans avoided dense rainforests, treating them as nearly impossible environments for early survival. But a groundbreaking discovery in Wes...

Humans Were Using Fire Long Before Scientists Thought Possible, Study Says

An international team in South Africa has pinned the earliest known use of fire by Homo erectus back to between 1.07 and 1.79 million years ago.

Bigger Human Bodies Evolved Late, Study of Fossils Finds

New PNAS research on 386 fossils shows human body size jumped later within the genus Homo rather than growing steadily across the whole family tree

Fossilized babies of ancient crocodile-like predators uproot understanding of how animals adapted to the land

Life on our planet began in the water. Eventually, one branch of the fish family tree developed legs and came up on land. These early four-legged animals, the tetrapods, were the f...

New Study Rewrites the Story of How Humans Got Bigger

Human body size evolution was shaped by both gradual change and a major later growth spurt within Homo. When did our ancestors become human-sized? Scientists have debated for decad...

It Was Technology, Not the Human Mind, that Advanced

At one time, we were encouraged to interpret ancient humans as a long, slow, Darwinian ascent of man. But maybe that didn’t really happen. Source

Human Ancestors May Have Used Fire Far Earlier Than We Thought, Study Reveals

Ancient bones revealed a surprise.ScienceAlert stories are written, fact-checked, and edited by humans, never generated by AI. Don't miss a story, subscribe here.

Ancient tooth proteins suggest Homo erectus may have left a genetic legacy in people today

For most of the 20th century, the model of human origins was a tree: with the trunk dividing into branches, and then twigs. Each species of human relative (hominin) was a neat, sin...

Rare Neanderthal baby fossil reveals our ancient relatives may have begun life much like modern humans

Cave-Dwelling <em>Homo Erectus</em> May Have Burned Owl Pellet Remains Nearly 1.8 Million Years Ago

Learn about new evidence from Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa that may represent the earliest use of fire by human ancestors. 

When Does a Human Person Begin?

Why Beginnings Matter for Bioethics and Moral Courage When does a human being begin to be? At first glance, the question seems simple, much as the question of when a person dies ca...

These 567-Million-Year-Old Fossils Are Rewriting the Story of Life on Earth

Ancient deep-sea organisms suggest movement, sexual reproduction, and complex animal life began earlier than previously thought. Every animal alive today, from jellyfish to humans,...

Physicist Overstates the “Gradual” Nature of Human Origins in the Fossil Record

We’ve gone back and forth with Dr. Barr many times in the past. Mainstream paleoanthropologists acknowledge that the origin of humans is sudden and abrupt. Source

Why Human Body Size Leaped 2 Million Years Ago

Human body size evolution was not a linear progression. Instead, a massive body mass explosion occurred 2 to 2.5 million years ago with Homo erectus, while divergent species like H...

Neil deGrasse Tyson Goes Viral Explaining Why Humanity’s Story Begins in Africa

A recent appearance by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on Club Shay Shay ignited widespread discussion across social media after he broke down humanity’s shared ancestry and the...

Scientists Uncover What Kept Humanity’s First Campfires Burning 780,000 Years Ago

Rare charcoal fragments from an ancient lakeshore campsite are offering new clues about fire use, resource management, and the environmental knowledge of some of humanity’s earlies...

How humans evolved to be twice as big as our ancestors

Artistic representations of ancient humans often show large men with bulging muscles – but our ancestors were actually smaller than us, in both height and body mass. Columnist Mich...