Neanderthal

Scientists have found bones in a Bulgarian cave that show modern humans may have arrived in Europe thousands of years earlier than previously thought, at a time when the region had long been home to Neanderthals.

The findings of excavations at the Bacho Kiro cave near Dryanovo in central Bulgaria suggest that the chronological overlap between humans and Neanderthals was longer than previously thought, said an article published in the science journal Nature on Monday.

Scientists have extracted from dental enamel the oldest human genetic material ever obtained, helping clarify the pivotal place in the human evolutionary lineage of a mysterious extinct species called Homo antecessor known from Spanish cave fossils.

Nearly 40 years after it was found by a monk in a Chinese cave, a fossilized chunk of jawbone has been revealed as coming from a mysterious relative of the Neanderthals.

Humans have unusually globular (or round) skulls and brains compared to our ancient ancestors -- including our closest extinct cousins the Neanderthals -- and a new study provides a possible explanation as to why, reports CNN. 

Scientists say they've found the remains of a prehistoric female whose mother was a Neanderthal and whose father belonged to another extinct group of human relatives known as Denisovans.

AFP - Denny was an inter-species love child.

Her mother was a Neanderthal, but her father was Denisovan, a distinct species of primitive human that also roamed the Eurasian continent 50,000 years ago, scientists reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Neanderthals survived at least 3,000 years longer than we thought in Southern Iberia — what is now Spain — long after they had died out everywhere else, according to new research published in Heliyon.

Archeologists have discovered the bones of a large 350,000-year-old animal during excavations at the Karain Cave in the southern Turkish province of Antalya.

With fossils and DNA, scientists are piecing together a picture of humanity’s beginnings, an origin story with more twists than anything you would find at the movie theater.