Ancient technology Articles
Neanderthals could start a fire with ancient lighters
Ancient Neanderthal tools seem to have been used to start a fire, settling a debate over whether they could make their own flames.
Ancient technology Articles
Neanderthal cave art is fake news?
We recently found the first evidence of Neanderthal cave art. However, some are skeptical of this discovery. Is it really what it seems?
Brain & behaviour
The origin of religion, according to hunter-gatherers
There’s a lot of variety in hunter-gatherers’ religious beliefs. Can we use all this data to figure out what early religion was like?
Evolution of our body
Did body odor evolve to scare of predators?
A narrow escape from a predator led Louis Leakey to think our body odor evolved to scare off predators. Does his idea have any merit?
Brain & behaviour
Neanderthals lived further north than we thought
Neanderthals lived across Europe, but never seemed to make it further north than Germany. New research suggests we haven’t been looking hard enough.
Evolution of our body
Climate change killed off ancient human species
Paranthropus robustus thrived in a small area of South Africa. Climate change robbed them of their favourite environment, likely dooming them to extinction.
Brain & behaviour
Could Neanderthals speak? Implications of FOXP2
One of the big pieces of evidence Neanderthals could speak – they have the human version of FOXP2 – is fake news. Is there other evidence they could speak?
Creationism
Creationist textbook is rubbish, says creationist study
Creationists researched how much biology university students from a creationist textbook. Their results reveal it was much less than in science education
Evolution of our body
Ancient children were more ape-like than their parents
Around 3 million years ago humans were basically just upright apes. Hence their name Australopithecus, which just means “southern ape”. However, children from back then took this to the extreme; sharing more features with other apes than their parents did1. See, there were still a few features that identified 3 million-year-old Read more…
Brain & behaviour
Teamwork makes us lazy and slower at learning
Teamwork leads to people taking intellectual shortcuts. This makes them slower to learn and more likely to be reliant on the successful group members.