#human evolution

A comparative primate study led by University of Oxford researchers suggests humanity’s overwhelming right-handedness may be best explained by two evolutionary shifts: bipedalism and larger brains.

Researchers studying a 59,000-year-old Neanderthal molar from Siberia say the tooth shows deliberate drilling to treat decay, potentially extending the earliest evidence of dentistry by about 45,000 years.

A new study suggests prehistoric people in sub-Saharan Africa avoided regions with high malaria risk for more than 70,000 years, challenging the idea that the disease only became a major force after the rise of farming.

A fresh critique of a foundational idea in human genetics argues that population structure in ancient Homo sapiens may explain key DNA patterns without requiring the standard interbreeding narrative.

Research from central Israel argues that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the mid-Middle Paleolithic Levant did not just coexist but directly influenced one another’s technologies, lifestyles, and burial practices.

University of Lincoln researchers challenge the assumption that human violence is a hardwired evolutionary trait, arguing that cooperation—not aggression—is humanity's primary adaptive strategy, with violence emerging from context and conditions.

A University at Buffalo study finds the chin likely arose as a byproduct of skull changes, not through natural selection for a specific function.