Topic description and stories

Emerald Swamp, Tasmania

Study uncovers earliest evidence of humans using fire to shape the landscape of Tasmania

15 Nov 2024

Some of the first human beings to arrive in Tasmania, over 41,000 years ago, used fire to shape and manage the landscape, about 2,000 years earlier...

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Professor Eske Willerslev with Donna and Joey, two members of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone tribe.

Ancient DNA analysis unlocks secrets of Ice Age tribes in the Americas

09 Nov 2018

Scientists have sequenced 15 ancient genomes spanning from Alaska to Patagonia and were able to track the movements of the first humans as they...

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Yao honey-hunter Orlando Yassene holds a male greater honeyguide temporarily captured for research in the Niassa National Reserve, Mozambique.

How humans and wild birds collaborate to get precious resources of honey and wax

22 Jul 2016

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...

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Looking for the good

03 Aug 2014

Anthropology looks at human differences in its study of the ‘other’ and at human commonalities in its more recent focus on the ‘suffering’. In...

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Beachcombing for early humans in Africa

31 May 2013

From the earliest modern humans to the present day, our species has evolved dramatically in both biological and behavioural terms. What forces...

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Diagram showing spread of humans from Africa.

Scientists use genetics and climate reconstructions to track the global spread of modern humans out of Africa

17 Sep 2012

Research indicates the out-of-Africa spread of humans was dictated by the appearance of favourable climatic windows.

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A chimpanzee moving bipedally during the study.

One step for early hominins: Study reveals why our ancestors switched to bipedal power

20 Mar 2012

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...

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Haua Fteah cave

Evidence of the first modern humans in North Africa

01 Jan 2010

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...

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