Genes make us who we are—but are they shaped by chance, natural selection, or something else?

A groundbreaking archaeological discovery in West Africa is challenging long-held assumptions about early human adaptability and migration. Evidence from a site in Côte d'Ivoire reveals that Homo ...

Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. In The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession With Human Origins, the intellectual historian Stefanos Geroulanos, ...

For decades, scientists believed modern humans came from one main ancestral group in Africa, an idea known as the 'Out of Africa' model. But new DNA research suggests the story may be far more ...

Malaria may have shaped early human life across Africa far earlier than once thought, steering where people could safely live ...

At the heart of scientific questions about the origins of humanity lie questions of human nature. Are Homo sapiens intrinsically lovers or fighters, predators or prey, lucky survivors or inevitable ...

A collection of 3-million-year-old bones unearthed 50 years ago in Ethiopia changed our understanding of human origins. Fifty years ago, our understanding of human origins began to change with the ...

Trace the remarkable origin story of Homo sapiens and the crucial moments that shaped our species. Where did humans come from, and what makes us unique? Discover the remarkable origins of Homo sapiens ...

In the summer of 1856, laborers at a limestone quarry near Düsseldorf were clearing mud and chert out of a cave when they turned up a fossilized skull. It was long and elliptical, with wide sinuses ...

A beach walk in Norfolk led to the discovery of a 780,000-year-old hand axe, rewriting early human history and settlement ...