I have spent years covering discoveries that nudge our origin story around the edges, but the sequencing of DNA from one of the very last Neanderthals does something different: it rewrites the center ...

The work demonstrates the power of ancient DNA to illuminate human biology and medicine in addition to history. A massive ...

Learn more about new research that analyzed 16,000 ancient genomes and discovered that natural selection hasn’t slowed down.

Ancient DNA reveals how farming accelerated human evolution, driving genetic changes over the past 10,000 years.

Every face carries a story, shaped long before birth by a quiet choreography of genes switching on and off at just the right moment. A new study suggests that part of that story reaches far back into ...

Africa has long been known as the cradle of humanity. Fossils, tools and genetics all point there. Yet the deeper story of how the first modern humans lived, moved and mixed has stayed blurry. Too ...

The gap between genetics and archaeology leaves us with an unclear picture of where the Neanderthals originated. Columnist ...

Not every modern human has the same set of Neanderthal DNA, however; different people will, by chance, have inherited different fragments. But there are also some areas, termed “Neanderthal deserts,” ...

If you regularly experience headaches, dizziness, balance problems and blurred vision, our Neanderthal cousins could be to blame. These are common symptoms of Chiari malformations, structural defects ...

CC0 Usage Conditions ApplyClick for more information. In a cave in southern Siberia, DNA reveals that Neanderthals once spent time there, along with another group of early humans: Denisovans.

LOS ANGELES — The largest genetic analysis of African populations to date suggests that modern humans originated in southern Africa about 60,000 years ago, not eastern Africa as is now commonly ...