By digging carefully, archaeologists can connect information from aDNA to information about the social lives of these people.

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 ...

Ancient bones buried deep in African soil are rewriting what we thought we knew about our shared human story. New genetic breakthroughs are finally pulling back the curtain on migrations and “ghost ...

Oakhurst rock shelter is an archaeological site near the town of George on the southern coast of South Africa. It is set into a sandstone cliff above a stream in a valley forested by towering old ...

Important, previously unrecognized genetic changes common to all ancient and modern Homo sapiens spread in Africa more than 300,000 years ago, a new study finds. After that, the same investigation ...

The textbook version of human evolution has long held that Homo erectus was the pioneering species to venture beyond Africa's borders around 1.8 million years ago. However, new analysis of five skulls ...

The American Journal of Human Genetics recently published a perspective piece on the need for an equitable and inclusive future for DNA and ancient DNA (aDNA) research in Africa. The paper highlights ...

Mandible of a hunter-gatherer woman who lived 7900 years ago at Matjes River Rockshelter in the Western Cape, South Africa, for whom a genome was reconstructed. In one of the largest African ...