A meticulous study of the ankle joint of this 4.4-million-year-old ancestor positions this species as a crucial link, bearing both primitive traits for climbing and early adaptations for upright ...

The recent analysis of a 4.4-million-year-old ankle bone in Ethiopia showed that the ancient species Ardipithecus ramidus may have served as a transitional species between apes and humans, indicating ...

Imagine the scene, around 3 million years ago in what is now east Africa. By the side of a river, an injured antelope keels over and draws its last breath. The carcass is soon set on by hyenas, who ...

Tom O'Mahoney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

Fifty years ago, the discovery of a partial skeleton amid the barren desert landscape of northern Ethiopia transformed our understanding of where humans came from, and how we developed into Homo ...

On November 24 1974, renowned American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson spotted “a piece of elbow with humanlike anatomy” poking out of a rocky hillside in northern Ethiopia. It was the first ...

Modern humans (Homo sapiens) are the sole surviving representatives of the human family tree, but we're the last sentence in an evolutionary story that began approximately 6 million years ago and ...

Dr. Scott Simpson has been active in paleoanthropological field and laboratory research in Ethiopia since 1992 as a member of the Middle Awash Research Project, the Gona Research Project, and he is ...

Tarzan swinging from tree to tree might seem like a Hollywood attempt at imagining the life of primitive men, but new findings suggest our ancient ancestors really were swingers. The study seemingly ...

It’s thought that the first humans evolved from apes about 6 or 7 million years ago. When a child asks the “where did we come from” question, one answer you might give would involve evolution. To a ...