Anthropology.net

MARCH 31, 2025

The shift from a hunter-gatherer existence to an agrarian lifestyle stands as one of the most profound transformations in human history. However, recent research challenges this narrative, emphasizing the pivotal role of human interactions and demographic dynamics in this monumental change.​

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Anthropology.net

DECEMBER 5, 2024

A recent study led by researchers from London’s Natural History Museum and the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy reignites the debate over whether Homo sapiens and Neanderthals ( Homo neanderthalensis ) should be classified as separate species. Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are both humans, but they differ in many ways.

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Anthropology.net

MARCH 7, 2025

A Child Buried in Ochre, A Legacy Written in Bone Buried deep within a Portuguese rock shelter some 28,000 years ago, a small child’s ochre-stained bones whisper a tale of interwoven ancestries, ritual significance, and a culture lost to time. Image credit: G.

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Anthropology.net

AUGUST 19, 2024

A groundbreaking genetic study conducted by researchers at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences has uncovered new evidence that challenges the longstanding belief in a dual-origin model of Japanese ancestry. This study shows that their genetic legacy persists, with their ancestry decreasing as one moves westward across Japan.

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Anthropology.net

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

More than 46,000 years ago, deep within the caves of what is now northern Spain, a silent drama unfolded between humans and the great beasts of the Ice Age. More importantly, the study provided evidence that humans and large carnivores—like hyenas and leopards—coexisted in Iberia for much longer than previously thought.

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Anthropology.net

DECEMBER 13, 2024

A Glimpse into Europe’s Earliest Settlers Over 45,000 years ago, small groups of modern humans roamed the icy expanse of Ice Age Europe. Among these pioneers were individuals whose lives and genetic histories have now been reconstructed from the oldest modern human genomes yet sequenced.

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Anthropology.net

APRIL 2, 2025

During the African Humid Period (14,500–5,000 years ago), this region supported thriving human populations. Their findings, recently published in Nature , challenge existing models of early human migration and isolation in North Africa.

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Anthropology.net

DECEMBER 4, 2024

A recent study, published in the European Journal of Archaeology 1 , suggests these plaques may represent one of humanity's earliest attempts at recording genealogy—a non-verbal precursor to modern ancestry documentation. eyes, noses) weakens this claim.

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Anthropology.net

FEBRUARY 15, 2025

The Mystery of the First Dogs Dogs, our oldest animal companions, have walked beside humans for tens of thousands of years. If correct, this finding challenges the long-held assumption that deliberate human intervention was necessary for the emergence of early dogs. The Role of Human Food: Was There Enough?

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The Hechinger Report

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

Over the course of the semester-long class, students research their own family histories, tracing one line back as far as they can through birth, death and marriage records, Census records, and church records, primarily. Brunelle hopes to broach more difficult conversations about race and ancestry in future years. Weekly Update.

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Sapiens

NOVEMBER 20, 2024

Lagging behind in scientific understandings of human diversity, the medical profession is failing its oath to “do no harm.” ✽ Doctors lie daily. By checking “Patient’s Race,” we health care providers pretend to know something that we cannot possibly know: the patient’s ancestry and associated medical risk.

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Anthropology.net

DECEMBER 13, 2024

The genetic legacy of Neanderthals persists in modern humans, with 1-2% of non-African genomes composed of Neanderthal DNA—a determination made through comprehensive sequencing and comparison of ancient and modern genomes. “These beneficial traits spread rapidly in early human populations.”

Humanities 98

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Sapiens

MARCH 5, 2024

An archaeologist explains how remains recently recovered from a cave in present-day Germany suggest that Neanderthals and modern humans populated Europe together for at least 10,000 years. An international, multidisciplinary team has identified human ( H. However, there are many challenges to exploring this distant time.

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Anthropology.net

JUNE 11, 2024

Neanderthal genes present in modern humans may have been introduced through an extended period of interbreeding starting around 47,000 years ago and lasting nearly 7,000 years, according to new research. Consequently, the genomes of contemporary human populations outside Africa contain about 1% to 2% Neanderthal DNA.

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Anthropology.net

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Human history is not just about where we came from but how we adapted to the ever-changing environments we encountered. Studies on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited exclusively from the mother, found that all modern human mtDNA lineages trace back to a common ancestor in Africa, roughly 200,000 years ago.

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Sapiens

OCTOBER 2, 2024

schools stokes misconceptions about race and human diversity. On the bus, Lewontin turned his attention to humans. His results have been replicated time and again over the last 50 years, as datasets have ballooned from a handful of proteins to hundreds of thousands of human genomes.

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Anthropology.net

OCTOBER 13, 2024

Unraveling the Complex Origins of Homo sapiens At the core of understanding human evolution lies the question of human nature. Did they dominate through conquest, or did they survive through cooperation Recent fossil and genetic discoveries increasingly suggest that ancient humans were more collaborative than combative.

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Anthropology.net

JULY 11, 2024

A remarkable study has brought to light the most ancient human genome sequenced to date, belonging to a Denisovan male from 200,000 years ago. Some Denisovan DNA has even been identified in modern humans, including Papuans and Han Chinese, indicating past interbreeding.

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Anthropology.net

APRIL 7, 2024

The evolution of dogs from their wild ancestors, the grey wolves, stands as one of the enduring mysteries of human prehistory. This groundbreaking research shed new light on the intricate journey of our canine companions, revealing unexpected insights into their ancestry. Grey wolf genomic history reveals a dual ancestry of dogs.

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Anthropology.net

DECEMBER 16, 2024

The findings, published in Nature Communications 1 , reveal a wealth of information about the boy's ancestry, physical traits, health, and the environment in which he lived, offering a rare glimpse into the lives of prehistoric humans. Genome sequence of a 45,000-year-old modern human from western Siberia." Villalba-Mouco, V.,

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Anthropology.net

SEPTEMBER 14, 2024

The study suggests that Neanderthals organized in smaller, more isolated groups, while early modern humans maintained broader social connections, which may have contributed to their survival. This genome is from a distinct lineage of late Neanderthals, adding new information to the complex history of the species. Photo: Xavier Muth.

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Anthropology.net

OCTOBER 8, 2024

The Oakhurst rock shelter, nestled in the cliffs of South Africa’s southern coast, has long been a focal point for archaeologists due to its wealth of artifacts and human remains. These findings offer a new perspective on human population stability and cultural evolution in southern Africa.

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Anthropology.net

JUNE 23, 2024

A recent not-yet-peer-reviewed analysis 1 of ancient and modern genomes suggests that contemporary human Neanderthal DNA originated from a single, prolonged period of mixing approximately 47,000 years ago. Introduction A new study, recently released as a preprint on bioRxiv , sharpens the timeline for this crucial period in human history.

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Anthropology.net

DECEMBER 22, 2023

Each discovery reshapes our understanding, challenging erstwhile beliefs, and heralding a paradigm shift in our comprehension of history. Notably, miscalculations in dating methodologies have led to significant misconceptions in human evolutionary history. They hold promise in advancing our comprehension of human evolution."

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Anthropology.net

JANUARY 20, 2024

In a groundbreaking revelation, over 1,600 ancient genomes have opened a window into the genetic history of modern Europeans. Chronicles of Migration: Ancestral Footprints Across Millennia Europe, a canvas painted by the migrations of anatomically modern humans, witnessed three distinct waves of settlement. 1 Allentoft, M.

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Anthropology.net

JULY 12, 2024

A groundbreaking study 1 has revealed that modern humans and Neanderthals engaged in repeated episodes of interbreeding over a span of 200,000 years. This discovery, spearheaded by researchers from Southeast University and Princeton University, sheds new light on the complex history of human evolution and interaction.

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Anthropology.net

APRIL 18, 2024

Unraveling Japan's Genetic Complexity Population genetics offers a window into the intricate tapestry of human ancestry and evolutionary history. A large new study has revealed new insight into the evolutionary history of Japanese people.

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Ancestry Humanities Library History 52

The Hechinger Report

OCTOBER 14, 2020

There’s an ugly history of proponents of eugenics , who believe in reshaping humanity by breeding “superior traits” and removing “inferior traits,” justifying their thinking with genetics. There is also an enormous shortcoming in the datasets used for this research: Virtually all are built with DNA from people of European ancestry.

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Strange Maps

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023

About 46% of humans, well over three billion people, are native speakers of an Indo-European language. Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is a language that gave rise to many others. But where did PIE first arise, and who spoke it: pastoralists from the Pontic steppe straddling eastern Europe and west Asia or agrarians from Anatolia in Turkey?

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Teaching American History

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

He did, and Livingston soon found herself sitting in an introductory college course in US history. The next semester, she took two more US history classes, then realized she’d found her major. The next school year, she was asked to teach not only the regular-level geography course but also AP Human Geography and World History.

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Anthropology.net

JULY 20, 2024

Colors indicate genetic ancestry, and black crosses designate individuals with the plague.Credit: Seersholm et al., A smaller group featured ancestry from the central Asian steppes. The disease likely spread human-to-human, rather than through fleas as in later plagues, indicating that rats cannot be blamed for this ancient epidemic.

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The Hechinger Report

SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

I regularly offer a course at my university called Teaching the Holocaust: History and Memory. Others separate out Israel as a legal issue or a human rights issue. The ways in which these questions are eventually answered by the Department of Education will have implications for how history is taught in schools”.

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Anthropology.net

FEBRUARY 15, 2025

published in The American Journal of Human Genetics 1 , has provided fresh insights into the complex origins of the Fulani, tracing their ancestry back to an ancient, lost world—the Green Sahara. How did their nomadic culture evolve? Now, a groundbreaking genetic study by Fortes-Lima et al.,

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Anthropology.net

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

A whole-genome study 1 challenges Herodotus’ theory that Armenians are descendants of Phrygian settlers from the Balkans, providing new evidence that reshapes our understanding of the region’s deep genetic history. Assyrian Links to Sasun Disproved Another long-standing hypothesis was also debunked.

History 98

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Anthropology.net

NOVEMBER 29, 2024

Human brain evolution has long fascinated scientists, as it underpins the development of intelligence, culture, and complex behavior. This gradual pattern of brain growth reflects the adaptive pressures faced by early humans and their relatives. Often portrayed as static or unchanging, they too exhibited gradual adaptations over time.

Humanities 98

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Anthropology.net

DECEMBER 3, 2024

The evolution of the human brain is one of the most remarkable chapters in our species' history. With its unparalleled size and complexity, the human brain consumes a disproportionate amount of energy relative to the rest of the body. Squirrel monkeys ( Saimiri sciureus ), another large-brain species.

Humanities 98

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Anthropology.net

JANUARY 2, 2025

By using “time-stratified ancestry analysis,” this research employs the novel Twigstats approach to reconstruct Europe's genetic history with unprecedented clarity. Conversely, the late Viking Age shows a reversal, with central European ancestries moving northward into Scandinavia.

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