35.9 – 34.0 thousand years ago I just posted a tweet about population structure in people thirty four thousand years ago. Like modern hunter-gatherers, people back then apparently managed to distri…| Logarithmic History
The first people to set foot in the Americas crossed with them not only stone technology and survival skills across the icy expanse of the Bering Strait. Along with these, a new study published in Science indicates that they also carried a genetic legacy inherited from two extinct relatives—Neanderthals and Denisovans—that could have helped them […]| Archaeology News Online Magazine
A minor genetic difference in one of the enzymes may have helped separate modern humans from Neanderthals and Denisovans, our closest extinct relatives, and may have even contributed to the fact that Homo sapiens thrived while the others became extinct. These are the findings of a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the […]| Archaeology News Online Magazine
40.4 – 38.2 thousand years ago “The Inheritors” is a novel by William Golding about the encounter between Neanderthals and modern humans. Like “Lord of the Flies,” it is written with a mid-twentieth century awareness that advanced societies don’t leave behind the potential for cruelty. The novel isn’t all that scientifically accurate, though: Golding’s early humans […]| Logarithmic History
We have been treating Neanderthals here as a species, Homo neanderthalensis, distinct from our own species, Homo sapiens. Some researchers elect to call Neanderthals a subspecies, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and classify modern humans as another subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens. The line between subspecies and species is not clear cut, nor – given the way evolution works – should we […]| Logarithmic History
50.2 – 47.6 thousand years ago Darwin was a liberal but his theories had consequences in some degrees inimical to traditional liberalism. The doctrine that all men are born equal … was incompatible…| Logarithmic History
Researchers in northeastern Ethiopia have made a thrilling discovery of fossilized teeth that may belong to a new branch of humanity, shedding more light on a critical period in human evolution. The remains are between 2.8 and 2.6 million years old and were found at the Ledi-Geraru archaeological site in the Afar Region—a region already […]| Archaeology News Online Magazine
311 – 295 thousand years ago Our picture of human evolution in Africa around 300 thousand years ago has changed dramatically in just the last few years. Here’s something we already knew. This skull…| Logarithmic History
Ochre tools from Blombos Cave reveal early Homo sapiens used pigment for advanced stone toolmaking 70,000–90,000 years ago.| Archaeology News Online Magazine
Der Originalbeitrag ist im Zusatzheft «Grün» der Weltwoche Nummer 25 vom 19. Juni 2025 zu lesen. Source| Schlumpf-Argumente
722 – 684 thousand years ago We’re getting to a time on the blog when Homo erectus (and Homo ergaster, if we accept that erectus-like African specimens are another species) give way …| Logarithmic History
“…human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution.” Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (1986) * Sleep was a mystery to our distant ance…| Literary Hub
A 50-thousand-year-old tree resin sample reveals ancient humans colonized the Pacific Ocean thousands of years earlier than previously shown.| The Debrief
Paranthropus is something of a mystery. It isn’t a species of human, but it certainly looked like one. What was this strange cousin, and what happened to it?| Historic Mysteries