Latest Prehistoric Africa Stories

Brett Smith for RedOrbit.com The reexamination of an ancestral human fossil found almost 90 years ago indicates that evolutionary changes in human brain development started 2.5 million years ago, about the time these ancestors began to walk upright. Florida State University researcher Dean Faulk and her colleagues analyzed the 2.2 million-year-old Taung fossil of a 3 to 4-year-old child and found several features that suggest a developed mechanism that allowed for the growth of a more...

Researchers studying human origins should develop standards for determining whether markings on fossil bones were made by stone tools or by biting animals, Indiana University faculty member Jackson Njau writes in an article this week in the journal Science. Njau, a co-director of field research at paleontological sites in eastern Africa's Olduvai Gorge, notes that the lack of agreement on interpreting such marks is leading to great uncertainty over when early hominids began using tools to...

It seems that “Lucy” was not the only hominin on the block in northern Africa about 3 million years ago. A team of researchers that included Johns Hopkins University geologist Naomi Levin has announced the discovery of a partial foot skeleton with characteristics (such as an opposable big toe bone) that don’t match those of Lucy, the human ancestor (or hominin) known to inhabit that region and considered by many to be the ancestor of all modern humans. The discovery is important...

A 3.4-million-year-old fossil foot found in eastern Ethiopia appears to settle a long-standing debate about whether there was just one line of hominins 3 to 4 million years ago, scientists said on Wednesday. The fossil record for that period had been virtually limited to the species Australopithecus afarensis, the early human ancestor made famous by the 3.2-million-year-old Lucy skeleton. However, research on the new specimen, which was found in February 2009 in an area locally known as...

Lawrence LeBlond for RedOrbit.com Scientists searching caves in China have unearthed the fossils of a possibly previously unknown species of human, including one that possesses a highly unusual mix of archaic and modern anatomical features found in humans. The find is significant, as the fossils -- dating back to 14,500 to 11,500 years ago -- represent the youngest of their kind ever found in mainland East Asia, and the most recent human remains found anywhere in the world that do not...

Youngest of their kind ever found in mainland East Asia Fossils from two caves in south-west China have revealed a previously unknown Stone Age people and give a rare glimpse of a recent stage of human evolution with startling implications for the early peopling of Asia. The fossils are of a people with a highly unusual mix of archaic and modern anatomical features and are the youngest of their kind ever found in mainland East Asia. Dated to just 14,500 to 11,500 years old, these...

The Sciences Magazine EurekaMag.com publishes reviews of specific subjects of all areas of natural science. The latest review covers the Roquefort which is one of the world's best-known blue cheeses made of sheep milk, Australopithecus which is an extinct genus of humans that evolved in eastern Africa around four million years ago before spreading throughout the continent and becoming extinct two million years ago, and Paleontology which is the study of prehistoric life that includes...

The sciences website EurekaMag.com publishes insights into specific subjects of all areas of natural science. The latest review covers the Great White Shark which is a large lamniform shark found in coastal surface waters in all major oceans, Homo Erectus which is an extinct species of humans that lived between 1.3 to 1.8 million years ago, and Vostok station which is a Russian Antarctic research station at the southern Pole of Cold, with the lowest temperature on Earth of −89.2 degrees...

Dietary change led to the appearance of modern humans in the Middle East 400,000 years ago, say TAU researchers Elephants have long been known to be part of the Homo erectus diet. But the significance of this specific food source, in relation to both the survival of Homo erectus and the evolution of modern humans, has never been understood — until now. When Tel Aviv University researchers Dr. Ran Barkai, Miki Ben-Dor, and Prof. Avi Gopher of TAU's Department of Archaeology and Ancient...

A new study examining the genealogies of early human pioneers suggests that settlers who were first to colonize a new region of the world produced more offspring than the settlers who followed them, giving them a selective advantage. The international team of researchers, who specialize in studying the effects of rapid territorial and demographic expansions on recent human evolution, analyzed the growth of human colonies in an area of Quebec, Canada, between 1686 and 1960.  They found...