Life on Earth began in a way that still boggles the mind. Around 4.5 billion years ago, a chemical process called abiogenesis occurred, where life emerged from non-life. Imagine a hot, watery mix of ...

This is something of a misnomer, for Eve was neither the first modern human nor the only woman alive 200,000 years ago. But she did live at a time when the modern human population was small—about ...

Momentous encounters -- Neanderthal ancestors -- Neanderthals and their world -- The quiet people -- The ten thousandth grandmother -- Great mobility -- The realm of the Lion Man -- Fat, flints, and ...

A 146,000-year-old skull recovered near Harbin, China, by scientists decades ago has now been found to belong to the Denisovans, an extinct relation to modern humans who lived in Siberia and East Asia ...

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 ...

Many people today simply assume that our evolution has quietly ended with the development of the modern human. It's easy to think that medicine, science, and modern living have made us "perfect" or ...

ANTHMAI copy has bookplate: Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Gift of Jayne H. Plank. "Modern Humans is a vivid account of the most recent--and perhaps the most important--phase of human evolution: ...