The idea that modern humans inherited DNA from Neanderthal ancestors is one of the 21st century’s most celebrated discoveries in evolution. It may not be that simple.

New research into Upper Paleolithic fossils from western Eurasia suggests that hybridization between ancient human groups was not a rare side event, but a major force in human evolution. By comparing ...

Neanderthal skull discovered in 1908 in France. (Luna04/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0) In 1857, the German anatomist Hermann ...

Neanderthals disappeared around 40,000 years ago, and one explanation given for their disappearance is that their brains were ...

Researchers examining the brains of living people found that they differed more substantially than Neanderthals' brains ...

Neanderthals are also continuing their own journey through history, and the latest scientific study conducted at Stajnia Cave ...

Fossils offer a detailed record of early human skulls but not the brains inside them. So researchers have been using genetic material taken from those fossils to search for clues about how the human ...

The latest research on a Neanderthal infant from Amud Cave in Israel is giving a clearer picture of how different early ...

These segments of the human genome, known as Human Ancestor Quickly Evolved Regions (HAQERs) are non-coding sequences that ...

A latest study utilizing advanced spatial modeling has revealed that neither climate change nor direct competition with early modern humans can fully explain the disappearance of Neanderthals from ...

A skull fragment discovered over fifty years ago on the banks of the Elbe River in Germany has finally yielded its secrets. Long considered by some researchers to be a rare Neanderthal-modern human ...

For a long time, Neanderthals were imagined as bulky carnivores of the Ice Age: heavy-browed hunters who lived on slabs of ...