New research by a University of Utah anthropologist explains how and why mothers in ancient societies formed cooperative groups to help raise their children. Karen Kramer, an associate professor of anthropology, published a study in the Journal of Human Evolution … Continue reading
The idea that a single population was the ancestor of all living humans is neat and convenient, but it is not consistent with the data. The origin of modern humans is one of the most popular and hotly debated topics … Continue reading
Anthropologists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and an international team of collaborators have discovered that early humans in East Africa had–by about 320,000 years ago–begun trading with distant groups, using color pigments and manufacturing more sophisticated tools … Continue reading
An international, interdisciplinary group of scholars working along the East African coast have discovered a major cave site which records substantial activities of hunter-gatherers and later, Iron Age communities. Detailed environmental research has demonstrated that human occupations occur in a … Continue reading
Ancient “doctors” mixed magic and medicine to heal patients. Before the Greeks excelled in science and philosophy, the culture was blooming in Mesopotamia, located between the Euphrates River and the Tigris River in present-day Iraq. This region, known as the cradle … Continue reading
A showdown with religious dogmas, an early scientific approach, and diligent use of plants were some of the ingredients of ancient medicine. Welcome aboard a historic journey to Greek temples, body fluids, and Roman hygiene. We usually regard the Greek … Continue reading
Ancient humans left Africa to escape a drying climate, about 60,000 years ago — a finding that contradicts previous suggestions that humens were able to leave because a then-wet climate allowed them to cross the generally arid Horn of Africa … Continue reading
Early humans seem to have recognized the dangers of inbreeding at least 34,000 years ago and developed surprisingly sophisticated social and mating networks to avoid it, new research has found. The study, reported in the journal Science, examined genetic information … Continue reading
The miracle of modern genetics has revolutionized the story anthropologists tell about how humans spread out across the Earth. Europeans arriving in the New World met people all the way from the frozen north to the frozen south. All had … Continue reading
It is believed that women were the “inventors” of agriculture, as they began applying observations to their gathering in order to maximize their returns. Plant varieties were chosen for their nutritional value and ease of production, and locations were chosen … Continue reading
