Scientists have sequenced 15 ancient genomes spanning from Alaska to Patagonia and were able to track the movements of the first humans as they spread across the Americas at “astonishing” speed during the last Ice Age, and also how they interacted with each other in the following millennia.
By following honeyguides, a species of bird, people in Africa are able to locate bees’ nests to harvest honey. Research now reveals that humans use special calls to solicit the help of honeyguides and that honeyguides actively recruit appropriate human partners. This relationship is a rare example of cooperation between humans and free-living animals.
Anthropology looks at human differences in its study of the ‘other’ and at human commonalities in its more recent focus on the ‘suffering’. In identifying ways that anthropology can contribute to solutions for world problems, Professor Joel Robbins proposes an approach he calls the ‘anthropology of the good’.
The diet and journeys taken by those who lived in the Sahara Desert thousands of years ago are being analysed through their teeth and bones.
From the earliest modern humans to the present day, our species has evolved dramatically in both biological and behavioural terms. What forces prompted these momentous changes?
Research indicates the out-of-Africa spread of humans was dictated by the appearance of favourable climatic windows.
Our earliest ancestors may have started walking on two limbs instead of four in a bid to monopolise resources and to carry as much food as possible in one go, researchers have found.
Excavation of the deepest archaeological trench in North Africa half a century after it was first dug is offering a glimpse of up to 200,000 years of human history.
Cambridge anthropologists are increasingly looking at human evolution not just as a path through the remote past, but also as a way to explore humanity today.
© 2024 University of Cambridge