Research has established that there are traces of Neandertal DNA in the genome of modern humans. Now an exploratory study that assessed the facial structure of prehistoric skulls is offering new insights, and supports the hypothesis that much of this interbreeding took place in the Near East – the region ranging from North Africa to Iraq. “Ancient DNA caused a ...

Ancient tools and bones discovered in Shangchen in the southern Chinese Loess Plateau by archaeologists suggest early humans left Africa and arrived in Asia earlier than previously thought. The artefacts show that our earliest human ancestors colonised East Asia over two million years ago. They were found by a Chinese team that was led by Professor Zhaoyu Zhu of the ...

Neanderthals survived at least 3,000 years longer than we thought in Southern Iberia – what is now Spain – long after they had died out everywhere else, according to new research published in Heliyon. The authors of the study, an international team from Portuguese, Spanish, Catalonian, German, Austrian and Italian research institutions, say their findings suggest that the process of modern ...