Striding bipedalism is a key derived behaviour of hominids that possibly originated soon
after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages. Although bipedal gaits include …

The role of fossils in dating the tree of life has been misunderstood. Fossils can provide
good “minimum” age estimates for branches in the tree, but “maximum” constraints on those …

We analyzed the whole-genome sequences of a family of four, consisting of two siblings and
their parents. Family-based sequencing allowed us to delineate recombination sites …

Hominid fossils predating the emergence of Australopithecus have been sparse and
fragmentary. The evolution of our lineage after the last common ancestor we shared with …

The search for the earliest fossil evidence of the human lineage has been concentrated in
East Africa. Here we report the discovery of six hominid specimens from Chad, central Africa …

Vertebrate palaeontology is a lively field, with new discoveries reported every week... and
not only dinosaurs! This new edition reflects the international scope of vertebrate …

The origin of anatomically modern Homo sapiens and the fate of Neanderthals have been
fundamental questions in human evolutionary studies for over a century1–4. A key barrier to …

There is currently no calibration available for the whole human mtDNA genome,
incorporating both coding and control regions. Furthermore, as several authors have pointed …

Human Evolutionary Genetics is a groundbreaking text which for the first time brings
together molecular genetics and genomics to the study of the origins and movements of …

50,000 years ago–merely a blip in evolutionary time–our Homo sapiens ancestors were
competing for existence with several other human species, just as their own precursors had …