'); document.write('

Early Humans News -- ScienceDaily
Read about early humans in this anthropology news section. Early human development, early human migration, culture and more. Photos.

'); document.write('

Unusual sex chromosomes of platypus, emu and pekin duck
'); document.write('Three studies uncovered the unusual sex chromosomes of platypus, emu and Pekin duck. Platypus have five pairs of sex chromosomes forming an unusual chain shape, while the sex chromosomes of emu and duck are not as different between sexes as those of human.'); document.write('
Oldest hominins of Olduvai Gorge persisted across changing environments
'); document.write('An approximately 2.0- to 1.8-million-year-old archaeological site demonstrates that early humans had the skills and tools to cope with ecological change.'); document.write('
Ancient DNA sheds light on the peopling of the Mariana Islands
'); document.write('Compared to the first peopling of Polynesia, the settlement of the Mariana Islands in the Western Pacific, which happened around 3,500 years ago, has received little attention. Researchers have now obtained answers to long debated questions regarding the origin of the first colonizers of the Marianas and their relationship to the people who initially settled in Polynesia.'); document.write('
Researcher adds to timeline of human evolution by studying an island fox
'); document.write('Nearly two decades ago, a small-bodied \'human-like\' fossil, Homo floresiensis, was discovered on an island in Indonesia. Some scientists have credited the find, now nicknamed \'Hobbit,\' as representative of a human ancestor who developed dwarfed features after living on the island, while others suggest it represents a modern human suffering from some type of disease because of its distinct human-like face and small brain.'); document.write('
Neanderthals buried their dead: New evidence
'); document.write('Was burial of the dead practiced by Neanderthals or is it an innovation specific to our species? Researchers have demonstrated, using a variety of criteria, that a Neanderthal child was buried, probably around 41,000 years ago, at the Ferrassie site (Dordogne, France).'); document.write('
Why do elephants and tigers still roam in India? Study offers clues
'); document.write('A study documenting four extinctions of large mammals on the Indian Subcontinent sheds light on why elephants, tigers, and rhinos still roam there.'); document.write('
True origin of oldest evidence of animals
'); document.write('Scientists have resolved a longstanding controversy surrounding the origins of complex life on Earth. The studies found molecular fossils extracted from 635-million-year-old rocks aren\'t the earliest evidence of animals, but instead common algae.'); document.write('
Lurking in genomic shadows: How giant viruses fuel the evolution of algae
'); document.write('Biologists have recently discovered that endogenous viral elements that originate from giant viruses are much more common in chlorophyte green algae than previously thought.'); document.write('
Genetic code evolution and Darwin\'s evolution theory should consider DNA an \'energy code\'
'); document.write('Darwin\'s theory of evolution should be expanded to include consideration of a DNA stability \'energy code\' -- so-called \'molecular Darwinism\' -- to further account for the long-term survival of species\' characteristics on Earth, according to scientists.'); document.write('
New genome alignment tool empowers large-scale studies of vertebrate evolution
'); document.write('Three new articles present major advances in understanding the evolution of birds and mammals, made possible by new methods for comparing the genomes of hundreds of species. Researchers developed a powerful new genome alignment method that has made the new studies possible, including the largest genome alignment ever achieved of more than 600 vertebrate genomes.'); document.write('
Newly discovered fossil shows small-scale evolutionary changes in an extinct human species
'); document.write('Males of the extinct human species Paranthropus robustus were thought to be substantially larger than females -- much like the size differences seen in modern-day primates such as gorillas, orangutans and baboons. But a new fossil discovery in South Africa instead suggests that P. robustus evolved rapidly during a turbulent period of local climate change about 2 million years ago, resulting in anatomical changes that previously were attributed to sex.'); document.write('
Cockroach mating habits and developmental features help uncover insect evolution
'); document.write('Researchers find that a \'lost\' family of cockroaches may be the missing link in the evolution of insects from prehistoric times to the present day.'); document.write('
Just like us - Neanderthal children grew and were weaned similar to us
'); document.write('Neanderthals behaved not so differently from us in raising their children, whose pace of growth was similar to Homo sapiens. Thanks to the combination of geochemical and histological analyses of three Neanderthal milk teeth, researchers were able to determine their pace of growth and the weaning onset time. These teeth belonged to three different Neanderthal children who have lived between 70,000 and 45,000 years ago in a small area of northeastern Italy.'); document.write('
Study of ancient dog DNA traces canine diversity to the Ice Age
'); document.write('A global study of ancient dog DNA presents evidence that there were different types of dogs more than 11,000 years ago in the period immediately following the Ice Age.'); document.write('
Denisovan DNA in the genome of early East Asians
'); document.write('Researchers analyzed the genome of the oldest human fossil found in Mongolia to date and show that the 34,000-year-old woman inherited around 25 percent of her DNA from western Eurasians, demonstrating that people moved across the Eurasian continent shortly after it had first been settled by the ancestors of present-day populations. This individual and a 40,000-year-old individual from China also carried DNA from Denisovans, an extinct form of hominins that inhabited Asia before modern humans arrived.'); document.write('