Latest Prehistoric Africa Stories
Prehistoric archaeologist Aaron Deter-Wolf explains why humans began wearing clothes--and it's more than just for protection against the elements.
Two and a half million years ago, our first ancestors, roaming the African savanna, formed rock shards into tools and used them to cut apart gazelle, zebra and other game. And these, scientists believe, turned out be a major evolutionary force and gave an evolutionary edge to human communication.
A stone knife discovered in Turkey is the oldest tool of its kind to ever be found there, and it suggests that humans passed from Asia into Europe far earlier than originally believed.
The earliest known art by our species, Homo sapiens, is thought to have been made around 100,000 years ago, but a new study has revealed that our forbearers Homo erectus may have created simpler art forms at least 430,000 years ago.
The Taung Child, South Africa’s premier hominin discovered 90 years ago by Wits University Professor Raymond Dart, never ceases to transform and evolve the search for our collective origins.
Skeletal remains recovered from the Indonesian island of Flores over a decade ago are not a new species of “hobbit” sized human, but an ancient Homo sapien showing signs of abnormal development consistent with Down syndrome.
In the past, scientists concluded many of man’s defining qualities, such as legs made for walking upright and a large brain, evolved all at once. But according to a new study in the journal Science, shifts in climate caused these qualities to evolve separately.
"Why the Universe Bothers to Exist" offers a striking breakthrough in the origins controversy, wherein the debate is now resolved. (PRWEB) March 24,
Thirteen years of meticulous excavation by South African and French scientists has shown that the nearly complete fossil skeleton of Australopithecus, nicknamed Little Foot, is most likely around 3 million years old.
Our most common male ancestor walked the earth 209,000 years ago – earlier than scientists commonly thought - according to new research from the University of Sheffield.
Australopithecus garhi is a gracile australopithecine species whose fossils were discovered in 1996 by a research team led by Ethiopian paleontologist Berhane Asfaw ad Tim White, an American paleontologist. The remains are believed to be a human ancestor species and most likely the direct ancestor to the human genus Homo. Tim White was the scientist to find the first of the key A. garhi fossils in 1996 within the Bouri Formation found in the Middle Awash of Ethiopia’s Afar Depression....
Homo sapiens is the scientific name for the human species. Homo is the human genus, which also includes Neanderthals and various other extinct species of hominid. H. sapiens is the only surviving species of the genus Homo. Modern humans are the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, distinguished from their direct ancestor, Homo sapiens idaltu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens_idaltu). Subspecies of H. sapiens include Homo sapiens idaltu, roughly translated as “elder wise human” and...
Homo sapiens idaltu is an extinct subspecies of Homo sapiens that lived nearly 160,000 years ago during the Pleistocene in Africa. “Idaltu” comes from the Saho-Afar word meaning “elder” or “first born”. The fossilized remains of H. s. idaltu were uncovered at Herto Bouri near the Middle Awash site of Ethiopia’s Afar Triangle in the year 1997 by Tim White, but were first revealed in 2003. Herto Bouri is a portion of Ethiopia under volcanic layers. By using radioisotope dating,...
Homo floresiensis Homo floresiensis, or Flores Man, nicknamed “hobbit” and “Flow”, is an extinct species in the genus Homo. The remains of an individual that would have stood about 3 feet in height were uncovered in 2003 on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Incomplete skeletons of nine individuals have been recovered, including one complete cranium. These remains have been the focus of intense research to establish whether they represent a species distinctive from modern humans....
- A political dynamiter.