Tag: neanderthals
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The Year in Neanderthals
The New York Times has a nice article that highlights new understanding into who the Neanderthals were. Neanderthals lived across Eurasia for hundreds of thousands of years before going extinct some 40,000 years ago. A bunch of new high profile studies were published in 2025. Barely three decades ago, these ancient hominids were still being…
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PBS NOVA – Great Mammoth Mystery
PBS NOVA just published the “Great Mammoth Mystery” on Youtube. Sir David Attenborough investigates a unique site in southern England where amateur fossil hunters uncovered giant mammoth bones and evidence of Neanderthals. A team of paleontologists and archaeologists soon discover that the site preserves rare evidence of the extinct beasts and early human inhabitants of…
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PBS Eons: When Neandertals Became Apex Predators
PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the Neandertals and how they lived. Climbing to the summit of the Eurasian food chain was one of the Neandertals’ most impressive evolutionary feats, but in the end, it may have actually been what doomed them.
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Morning Person? You Might Have Neanderthal Genes to Thank
Javier Trueba/MSF, via Science Source Carl Zimmer has an interesting article about genetics over on his Origins column at the New York Times. A recent paper in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution derails generic research that suggests some of our circadian traits might come from Neanderthal genes. Modern humans and the ancient humans that…
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PBS Eons: What If Neandertals Buried Their Dead?
PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the Neanderthals and how they lived… and died. They cared for their sick and disabled, so I feel its not ridiculous to think that they very much buried their dead. They had compassion, surely they wanted to say goodbye to their loved ones and probably…
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Prehistoric Surprise: Ancient Footprints Reveal the Presence of Man in Spain 200,000 Years Earlier Than Thought
SciTechDaily has a story about the discovery of some very old footprints. The footprints were found in Spain in 2020. They were thought to date to about 106,000 year old ago and to probably be of Neanderthal origin. Now, Jorge Rivera, a researcher and technician from the University of Seville’s GRS Radioisotopes department has found…
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NYT: First Known Family of Neanderthals Found in Russian Cave
Carl Zimmer’s Matter column over at the New York Times has an interesting article about Neanderthals. Analysis of ancient DNA of Neanderthal bones from a cave in Siberia has led researchers to believe they have found a family unit consisting of a father, daughter, and multiple cousins. The bones were discovered in 2007 with a…
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Neanderthals died out 40,000 years ago, but there has never been more of their DNA on Earth
The Conversation has an interesting article about the Neanderthals. First discovered in 1856, Neanderthals are known to have been very similar to us. We knew them and even interbred. They were successful for many years even along side us, so why did they go extinct? Neanderthals have served as a reflection of our own humanity…
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PBS Eons: The Neanderthals That Taught Us About Humanity
Checkout the new episode of PBS Eons. It’s about Neanderthals and how they weren’t much different than us. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Neandertals were thought to have been…primitive. Unintelligent, hunched-over cavemen, for lack of a better word. But the discoveries made in that Iraqi cave provided some of the earliest…
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SciNews: A Greek skull may belong to the oldest human found outside of Africa
SciNews has a story about a skull discovered on Greece’s southern coast in 1978. That skull dates to at least 210,000 years ago. It was encased in a rock that included a Neandertal skull dating to at least 170,000 years ago. If these findings are verified, this skill represents the oldest Homo sapiens fossil outside…
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Ancient Girl’s Parents Were Two Different Human Species – Neanderthal and Denisovans
National Geographic has a story about the first direct evidence of interbreeding among Neanderthal and Denisovans. A paper in this week’s Nature has all the details. When the results first popped up, paleogeneticist Viviane Slon didn’t believe it. “What went wrong?” she recalls asking herself at the time. Her mind immediately turned to the analysis.…
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A Jawbone Is the Oldest Modern-Human Fossil Outside of Africa
The Atlantic has a story about a recent discovery that threatens to rewrite the early history of modern humans. The find from an Israeli cave dates to between 177,000 and 194,000 years ago. These dates, along with a 315,000 year old fossil from Ethiopia, call into question the previous “Out of Africa” estimates of 50-60,000…
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Humans Today Have Even More Neanderthal DNA Than We Realised
George Dvorsky Oct 6, 2017, 6:00pm Before this new study, only four Neanderthal specimens have had their genomes sequenced. Of these, only one — an Altai Neanderthal found in Siberia — was of sufficient quality, where scientists were able to accurately flag variations in the genome. The new analysis, enabled by a remarkably well-preserved genome…
