The first complete genetic portrait of a so‑called “last Neanderthal” is forcing scientists to redraw the map of our origins, from who we met to how we survived. Instead of a simple story of ...

Scientists read ancient DNA from South African hunter gatherers and found a very early human branch that shaped survival ...

Scientists have long debated how modern humans evolved. For decades, most researchers agreed that Homo sapiens came from one ancestral group in Africa, dating back 200,000 to 300,000 years. But new ...

Africa has long been known as the cradle of humanity. Fossils, tools and genetics all point there. Yet the deeper story of ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images Scientists have long agreed that early ...

Learn how genomes from 28 ancient individuals show that Homo sapiens lived in southern Africa in near isolation for hundreds ...

The study of ancient DNA has revolutionised our understanding of human history, enabling scientists to decipher complex population dynamics over tens of thousands of years. By analysing genetic ...

The moment a creature dies, its DNA begins to break down. Half of it degrades every 521 years on average. By about 6.8 million years, even under ideal preservation conditions in cold, stable ...

In the past twenty years, major technological advances in extracting and analyzing DNA have transformed the ability to ...

Sediment DNA also traces life outside the cave. Predators dragged prey into sheltered chambers, humans left waste behind. By ...

Scientists have decoded the world’s oldest human DNA sequence, beating the previous record by almost 300,000 years, and at the same time confusing what we know of our early relatives. Published in ...