Human Evolution News

December 16, 2025

Top Headlines

Scientists Find a Surprising Link Between Lead and Human Evolution

Nov. 16, 2025 Researchers found that ancient hominids—including early humans—were exposed to lead throughout childhood, leaving chemical traces in fossil teeth. Experiments suggest this exposure may have driven genetic changes that strengthened ...

From Poison to Power: How Lead Exposure Helped Shape Human Intelligence

Oct. 16, 2025 Long before humans built cities or wrote words, our ancestors may have faced a hidden threat that shaped who we became. Scientists studying ancient teeth found that early humans, great apes, and even Neanderthals were exposed to lead millions of ...

The Hidden Denisovan Gene That Helped Humans Conquer a New World

Oct. 7, 2025 Ancient humans crossing the Bering Strait into the Americas carried more than tools and determination—they also carried a genetic legacy from Denisovans, an extinct human relative. A new study reveals that a mysterious gene called MUC19, inherited ...

Forgotten Royal Warship Sunk 500 Years Ago Reveals Surprising Secrets

Sep. 19, 2025 From the wreck of the royal Danish-Norwegian flagship Gribshunden, archaeologists have uncovered a rare glimpse into the naval power of the late Middle Ages. This warship, lost in 1495, carried an arsenal of small guns designed for close-range ...

New Velvet Worm Species a First for the Arid Karoo

May 30, 2025 A new species of velvet worm, Peripatopsis barnardi, represents the first ever species from the arid Karoo, which indicates that the area was likely historically more forested than at present. In the Cape Fold Mountains, we now know that every ...

Leprosy Existed in America Long Before Arrival of Europeans

May 29, 2025 Long considered a disease brought to the Americas by European colonizers, leprosy may actually have a much older history on the American continent. Scientists reveal that a recently identified second species of bacteria responsible for leprosy, ...

Bed Bugs Are Most Likely the First Human Pest, New Research Shows

May 28, 2025 Researchers compared the whole genome sequence of two genetically distinct lineages of bed bug, and their findings indicate bed bugs may well be the first true urban ...

Ancient DNA Used to Map Evolution of Fever-causing Bacteria

May 22, 2025 Researchers have analyzed ancient DNA from Borrelia recurrentis, a type of bacteria that causes relapsing fever, pinpointing when it evolved to spread through lice rather than ticks, and how it gained and lost genes in the ...

Scientists Have Figured Out How Extinct Giant Ground Sloths Got so Big and Where It All Went Wrong

May 22, 2025 Scientists have analyzed ancient DNA and compared more than 400 fossils from 17 natural history museums to figure out how and why extinct sloths got so ...

'Selfish' Genes Called Introners Proven to Be a Major Source of Genetic Complexity

May 22, 2025 A new study proves that a type of genetic element called 'introners' are the mechanism by which many introns spread within and between species, also providing evidence of eight instances in which ...

Asian Elephants Have Larger Brains Than Their African Relatives

May 20, 2025 African elephants are the largest land animals on earth and significantly larger than their relatives in Asia, from which they are separated by millions of years of evolution. Nevertheless, Asian elephants have a 20 percent heavier brain, as ...

Research Team Traces Evolutionary History of Bacterial Circadian Clock on Ancient Earth

May 20, 2025 To better understand the circadian clock in modern-day cyanobacteria, a research team has studied ancient timekeeping systems. They examined the oscillation of the clock proteins KaiA, KaiB, and KaiC ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:32am EST

Fossil Brain Scans Show Pterosaurs Evolved Flight in a Flash

Dec. 9, 2025 Ancient pterosaurs may have taken to the skies far earlier and more explosively than birds, evolving flight at their very origin despite having relatively small brains. Using advanced CT imaging, ...

A Lost Amazon World Just Reappeared in Bolivia

Nov. 30, 2025 Researchers exploring Bolivia’s Great Tectonic Lakes discovered a landscape transformed over centuries by sophisticated engineering and diverse agricultural traditions. Excavations show how ...

Dinosaur Mummy Found With Hooves and a Hidden Crest

Nov. 30, 2025 Scientists have reconstructed the most complete and lifelike profile of Edmontosaurus annectens thanks to an extraordinary preservation process called clay templating, in which a thin clay film ...

A Strange Ancient Foot Reveals a Hidden Human Cousin

Nov. 28, 2025 Researchers have finally assigned a strange 3.4-million-year-old foot to Australopithecus deyiremeda, confirming that Lucy’s species wasn’t alone in ancient Ethiopia. This hominin had an ...

Science Finally Solves a 700-Year-Old Royal Murder

Nov. 14, 2025 Genetic, isotopic, and forensic evidence has conclusively identified the remains of Duke Béla of Macsó and uncovered remarkable details about his life, ancestry, and violent death. The study ...

New Neanderthal Footprints in Portugal Reveal a Life We Never Expected

Nov. 13, 2025 Footprints preserved on ancient dunes show Neanderthals actively navigating, hunting, and living along Portugal’s coastline. Their behavior and diet suggest a far more adaptable and socially ...

Archaeologists May Have Finally Solved Peru’s Strange “Band of Holes” Mystery

Nov. 10, 2025 In Peru’s mysterious Pisco Valley, thousands of perfectly aligned holes known as Monte Sierpe have long puzzled scientists. New drone mapping and ...

2 Million-Year-Old Teeth Reveal Secrets from the Dawn of Humanity

Nov. 1, 2025 For decades, Paranthropus robustus has intrigued scientists as a powerful, big-jawed cousin of early humans. Now, thanks to ancient protein analysis, researchers have cracked open new secrets hidden ...

Humans Evolved Faster Than Any Other Ape

Oct. 29, 2025 UCL scientists found that human skulls evolved much faster than those of other apes, reflecting the powerful forces driving our brain growth and facial flattening. By comparing 3D models of ape ...

Before T. Rex, There Was the “dragon Prince”

Oct. 24, 2025 Scientists have unveiled Khankhuuluu, a new Mongolian dinosaur species that predates and closely resembles early Tyrannosaurs. With its long snout, small horns, and lean build, it represents a ...

Archaeologists Uncover Lost Land Bridge That May Rewrite Human History

Oct. 12, 2025 New research along Turkey’s Ayvalık coast reveals a once-submerged land bridge that may have helped early humans cross from Anatolia into Europe. Archaeologists uncovered 138 Paleolithic tools ...

The Hidden Denisovan Gene Still Protecting Humans Today

Aug. 24, 2025 Scientists have discovered that a gene called MUC19, inherited from Denisovans through ancient interbreeding, may have played a vital role in helping Indigenous ancestors adapt as they migrated into ...

140,000-Year-Old Skeleton Shows Earliest Interbreeding Between Humans and Neanderthals

Aug. 21, 2025 Scientists have uncovered the world s earliest fossil showing both Neanderthal and Homo sapiens features: a five-year-old child from Israel s Skhul Cave dating back 140,000 years. This discovery ...

New Fossils Reveal a Hidden Branch in Human Evolution

Aug. 27, 2025 Fossils unearthed in Ethiopia are reshaping our view of human evolution. Instead of a straight march from ape-like ancestors to modern humans, researchers now see a tangled, branching tree with ...

Ancient Fossil Discovery in Ethiopia Rewrites Human Origins

Aug. 21, 2025 In the deserts of Ethiopia, scientists uncovered fossils showing that early members of our genus Homo lived side by side with a newly identified species of Australopithecus nearly three million years ...

Who Were the Mystery Humans Behind Indonesia’s Million-Year-Old Tools?

Sep. 10, 2025 A groundbreaking discovery on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi reveals that early hominins crossed treacherous seas over a million years ago, leaving behind stone tools that reshape our ...

400-Million-Year-Old Fish Exposes Big Mistake in How We Understood Evolution

July 29, 2025 A fish thought to be evolution’s time capsule just surprised scientists. A detailed dissection of the coelacanth — a 400-million-year-old species often called a “living fossil” — revealed ...

Who Are the Papua New Guineans? New DNA Study Reveals Stunning Origins

Sep. 15, 2025 On remote islands of Papua New Guinea, people carry a story that ties us all back to our deepest roots. Although their striking appearance once puzzled scientists, new genetic evidence shows they ...

A 500-Million-Year-Old Fossil Just Rewrote the Spider Origin Story

July 24, 2025 Half a billion years ago, a strange sea-dwelling creature called Mollisonia symmetrica may have paved the way for modern spiders. Using detailed fossil brain analysis, researchers uncovered neural ...

Butchery Clues Reveal Neanderthals May Have Had “family Recipes”

July 17, 2025 Neanderthals living in two nearby caves in ancient Israel prepared their food in surprisingly different ways, according to new archaeological evidence. Despite using the same tools and hunting the ...

Inside the Maya King’s Tomb That Rewrites Mesoamerican History

July 12, 2025 A major breakthrough in Maya archaeology has emerged from Caracol, Belize, where the University of Houston team uncovered the tomb of Te K'ab Chaak—Caracol’s first known ruler. Buried with ...

This Team Tried to Cross 140 Miles of Treacherous Ocean Like Stone-Age Humans—and It Worked

June 26, 2025 Experiments and simulations show Paleolithic paddlers could outwit the powerful Kuroshio Current by launching dugout canoes from northern Taiwan and steering southeast toward Okinawa. A modern crew ...

Mammals Didn't Walk Upright Until Late—here's What Fossils Reveal

June 25, 2025 The shift from lizard-like sprawl to upright walking in mammals wasn’t a smooth climb up the evolutionary ladder. Instead, it was a messy saga full of unexpected detours. Using new bone-mapping ...

Buried for 23,000 Years: These Footprints Are Rewriting American History

June 29, 2025 Footprints found in the ancient lakebeds of White Sands may prove that humans lived in North America 23,000 years ago — much earlier than previously believed. A new study using radiocarbon-dated ...

Scientists Finally Know Why Early Human Migrations out of Africa Failed

June 26, 2025 New research reveals why early human attempts to leave Africa repeatedly failed—until one group succeeded spectacularly around 50,000 years ago. Scientists discovered that before this successful ...

2,000 Miles Through Rivers and Ice: Mapping Neanderthals’ Hidden Superhighways Across Eurasia

June 10, 2025 Neanderthals may have trekked thousands of miles across Eurasia much faster than we ever imagined. New computer simulations suggest they used river valleys like natural highways to cross daunting ...

New Evidence Reveals Advanced Maritime Technology in the Philippines 35,000 Years Ago

June 9, 2025 In a bold reimagining of Southeast Asia s prehistory, scientists reveal that the Philippine island of Mindoro was a hub of human innovation and migration as far back as 35,000 years ago. Advanced ...

Asians Made Humanity's Longest Prehistoric Migration and Shaped the Genetic Landscape in the Americas

May 15, 2025 A groundbreaking international study has revealed that early Asians undertook humanity s longest known prehistoric migration walking more than 20,000 kilometers over thousands of years from North ...

Digital Reconstruction Reveals 80 Steps of Prehistoric Life

May 15, 2025 A dinosaur's 40-second journey more than 120 million years ago has been brought back to life by a research team using advanced digital modelling ...

Dexterity and Climbing Ability: How Ancient Human Relatives Used Their Hands

May 14, 2025 Scientists have found new evidence for how our fossil human relatives in South Africa may have used their hands. Researchers investigated variation in finger bone morphology to determine that South ...