In 1998, paleoanthropologist Ronald Clarke and his research team discovered the skull of a previously unknown human ancestor ...

In paleoanthropology, a rare, nearly-complete skeleton can rewrite entire chapters of the human origin story. The “Little Foot,” fossil an exquisitely preserved hominin found in South Africa’s ...

One of the most complete human ancestor fossils ever found may belong to an entirely new species, according to an ...

(Reuters) - The incorporation of meat into the diet was a milestone for the human evolutionary lineage, a potential catalyst for advances such as increased brain size. But scientists have struggled to ...

Some of the morphological characteristics of the human hand are different from that of other primates enabling us to grab objects with precision and use them exerting a force. Yet, how did our early ...

Natural history is a difficult thing to conceptualize. You’ve got eons of undocumented progress, like the evolution of many species. Take, for example, the Australopithecus, an ancient great ape ...

Scientists say they have solved the mystery of the Burtele foot, a set of 3.4 million-year-old bones found in Ethiopia in 2009. The fossils, along with others unearthed more recently, have now been ...

These files consist of 3D scans of historical objects in the collections of the Smithsonian and may be downloaded by you only for non-commercial, educational, and ...

Since the discovery of the fossil remains of Australopithecus africanus from Taung nearly a century ago, and subsequent discoveries of Paranthropus robustus, there have been disagreements about the ...

Recent fossil finds could mean that "Lucy" wasn't our direct ancestor, some scientists say. Others strongly disagree.

The special tool-wielding power of human hands may go back farther in evolutionary history than scientists have thought. That's according to a new study of hand bones from an early relative of humans ...

Dexterity of human ancestors goes much further back than previously thought. An exhibit featuring the 3.2 million year old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton called Lucy and an artist's life-sized ...