Human evolution has often been depicted as a process of adaptation, where natural selection and genetic changes drive species toward better-suited traits for survival in their environments. But this ...

One of the defining features of human evolution is the steady expansion of our brains. New findings suggest this growth may be partly linked to higher levels of estrogen before birth. Surprisingly, a ...

Researchers at the University of Maine are theorizing that human beings may be in the midst of a major evolutionary shift — driven not by genes, but by culture. In a paper published in the Oxford ...

This has been quite the wild year in human evolution stories. Our relatives, living and extinct, got a lot of attention—from new developments in ape cognition to an expanded perspective of a ...

This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every month. If I tried to recap all the new fossils, new methods and ...

Life on Earth began in a way that still boggles the mind. Around 4.5 billion years ago, a chemical process called abiogenesis ...

The trajectory of life on Earth has always been predicated by genetic evolution, but two scientists from the University of Maine argue that culture is now the main force shaping our lives. A new study ...

A composite view of the Earth constructed by NASA from multiple satellite images Editor at Large Human evolution is a story writ slow. It’s been about 3.8 billion years since life on Earth emerged and ...

In the dry, rugged badlands of Ethiopia’s Afar Region, a team of scientists has uncovered fossils that could change how you picture human evolution. These finds, dating back between 2.6 and 2.8 ...

Humans have lived with fire for over a million years. Scientists now say burn injuries may have influenced human evolution and healing.