Dated to about 1.5 million years ago, the bones display a long robust thumb, short fingers and a mobile little finger, hinting at tool use and precision grips beyond the genus Homo.

Ancient, fossilized teeth, uncovered during a decades-long archaeology project in northeastern Ethiopia, indicate that two different kinds of hominins, or human ancestors, lived in the same place ...

Hand fossils unearthed in Kenya reveal that an extinct human relative called Paranthropus boisei had unexpected dexterity and gorilla-like strength.

(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 ...

In a 1970 National Geographic feature, paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey—son of Louis and Mary Leakey—recounted his ...

Homo habilis, discovered in East Africa, has long been called “the handy man” for its association with early stone tools. But scientists now question whether it truly deserves the title of first human ...

Sophisticated scanning technology is revealing intriguing secrets about Little Foot, the remarkable fossil of an early human forerunner that inhabited South Africa 3.67 million years ago during a ...

The species Australopithecus afarensis inhabited East Africa more than three million years ago, and occupies a key position in the hominin family tree, as it is widely accepted to be ancestral to all ...

Fossils of our earliest ancestors in the "cradle of humankind" are a million years older than previously thought, according to new research. The Sterkfontein Caves in Johannesburg, South Africa, ...

Three-million-year old brain imprints in fossil skulls of the species Australopithecus afarensis (famous for 'Lucy' and 'Selam' from Ethiopia) shed new light on the evolution of brain growth and ...

Archaeologists uncovered teeth from an ancient human ancestor in Ethiopia's Afar Region. - Amy Rector/Virginia Commonwealth University Ancient, fossilized teeth, uncovered during a decades-long ...

A new study led by paleoanthropologists reveals that Lucy's species Australopithecus afarensis had an ape-like brain. However, the protracted brain growth suggests that -- as is the case in humans -- ...