When a stone sits on the Earth’s surface, cosmic rays quietly pepper it, leaving behind rare isotopes like tiny time stamps. Bury the stone deep enough, and that cosmic “printing press” shuts off.

For decades, textbooks painted a dramatic picture of early humans as tool-using hunters who rose quickly to the top of the food chain. The tale was that Homo habilis, one of the earliest ...

Our prehistoric human ancestors relied on deliberately modified and sharpened stone tools as early as 3.3 million years ago. The selection of rock type depended on how easily the material could be ...

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." If H. habilis really had begun the shift towards eating meat, they argue, the only signs of bone damage ...

One spring, after a long winter, an aged elephant lay dying at the bank of a small stream near the coast of what is now northern Italy. Soon after, some scavengers arrived to dine on this huge ...

A new study indicates that human behavior around 45,000 to 29,000 years ago contributed to a change in the composition of scavenging animal species living nearby. While smaller scavenging animals such ...

Early humans may have created fire 400,000 years ago, according to evidence unearthed at an archaeological site in England. Although there is evidence that early humans used natural fire in Africa as ...

Genetic tweaks changed how the hip bones of early humans developed, which allowed them to start walking upright on two legs, according to new research. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News Two small ...

Understanding what the environment looked like millions of years ago is essential for piecing together how our earliest ancestors lived and survived. Habitat shapes everything, from what food was ...

New research along Turkey’s Ayvalık coast reveals a once-submerged land bridge that may have helped early humans cross from Anatolia into Europe. Archaeologists uncovered 138 Paleolithic tools across ...