In a remarkable evolutionary windfall, fossil hunters have discovered neatly fitting halves of a nearly complete, 3.8-million-year-old hominid skull. This unexpected specimen shines some light on ...

The high-security fossil vault at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), in Johannesburg, contains treasure more precious than the gold that paid for the university’s establishment. It is the ...

Early humans were still swinging from trees two million years ago, scientists have said, after confirming a set of contentious fossils represents a “missing link” in humanity’s family tree. The ...

Human evolution is not a straight line but a complex branching tree shared with other great apes. This overview explains the distinction between hominids and hominins and traces the evolutionary ...

An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. Impact Link Everything we know about the group of human ancestors called australopiths comes from just a few dozen fossils. But a skull discovered in Ethiopia ...