Human evolution

The fossilized hominin footprints, which date to some 300,000 years ago, were probably left by members of the species Homo heidelbergensis

It's a question on every new parent's exhausted mind: Why are babies born so helpless? In 1960, an American anthropologist laid out an influential explanation rooted in human evolution.

The Megalopolis Basin in the Peloponnese was among the southernmost ecological refuges in Europe during the glacial periods of the Middle Pleistocene, according to the results of a five-year program of surface and geoarchaeological research recently completed by the Culture Ministry and the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (ASCSA).

Paleontologists in South Africa said on June 5 they have found the oldest known burial site in the world, containing remains of a small-brained distant relative of humans previously thought incapable of complex behavior.

In the 1800s, archaeologists began reconstructing the deep history of Europe from the bones of ancient hunter-gatherers and the iconic art they left behind, like cave paintings, fertility figurines and "lion-man" statues.

Over the past decade, geneticists have added a new dimension to that history by extracting DNA from teeth and bones.

The remains suggest that the area was one of the first homes for early humans outside Africa

Twenty years ago, scientists discovered a 7-million-year-old skull that they concluded belonged to a creature who walked upright and was our earliest known ancestor. Not everyone was convinced. Now, the researchers are back with more evidence they say strengthens their case.

A jawbone fragment discovered in northern Spain last month could be the oldest known fossil of a human ancestor found to date in Europe, Spanish paleontologists said on July 8.

The researchers said the fossil found at an archaeological site on June 30 in northern Spain's Atapuerca mountain range is around 1.4 million years old.

The fossils’ updated age makes them several hundred thousand years older than the human ancestor “Lucy”

When compared to the remains of other early humans, the fossil is evidence of human dispersal out of Africa in successive waves