Anthropology articles within Nature

Featured

  • News Q&A |

    Nature talks to the archaeologist behind controversial claims that ancient teeth could rewrite human evolution.

    • Haim Watzman

  • Outlook |

    Diet-directed evolution shaped our brains, but whether it was meat or tubers, or their preparation, that spurred our divergence from other primates remains a matter of hot debate.

    • Michael Eisenstein

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using DNA from a finger bone, the genome of an archaic hominin from southern Siberia has been sequenced to about 1.9-fold coverage. The group to which this individual belonged shares a common origin with Neanderthals, and although it was not involved in the putative gene flow from Neanderthals into Eurasians, it contributed 4–6% of its genetic material to the genomes of present-day Melanesians. A tooth whose mitochondrial genome is very similar to that of the finger bone further suggests that these hominins are evolutionarily distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans.

    • David Reich
    • , Richard E. Green
    •  & Svante Pääbo

  • News & Views |

    The timing of the dispersal of our species from Africa is a continuing and lively topic of debate. Evidence that modern humans existed in China more than 100,000 years ago is both equivocal and thought-provoking.

    • Robin Dennell

  • Letter |

    Here, human genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data from more than 15,000 parent–offspring pairs have been used to construct the first recombination maps that are based on directly observed recombination events. The data reveal interesting differences between the sexes: for instance, in males recombination tends to shuffle exons, whereas in females it generates new combinations of nearby genes. Comparison of these maps with others also reveals population differences.

    • Augustine Kong
    • , Gudmar Thorleifsson
    •  & Kari Stefansson

  • News & Views |

    Phylogenetic methods of evolutionary biology can be used to study socio-political variation mapped onto linguistic trees. The range of political complexities in Austronesian societies offers a good test case. See Article p.801

    • Jared Diamond

  • News |

    Political complexity increases gradually — but can decline rapidly.

    • Kerri Smith

  • News |

    Revamped conservation effort aims to correct mistakes made in preserving cave paintings.

    • Declan Butler

  • Books & Arts |

    Walton Ford's painting of a historical primate banquet belongs to a rich tradition of exploring the 'human animal', explains Martin Kemp.

    • Martin Kemp

  • News & Views |

    How far back in the human lineage does tool use extend? Fossil bones that bear evidence of butchery marks made by stone implements increase the known range of that behaviour to at least 3.2 million years ago.

    • David R. Braun

  • News |

    Russell L. Ciochon and his team are in Indonesia investigating the geological source and age of one of the world's biggest caches of Homo erectus.

    • Miriam Frankel

  • News & Views |

    A site in Norfolk, UK, provides the earliest and northernmost evidence of human expansion into Eurasia. Environmental indicators suggest that these early Britons could adapt to a range of climatic conditions.

    • Andrew P. Roberts
    •  & Rainer Grün

  • News Feature |

    Finds in Turkey could answer key questions about ancient human origins, but palaeoanthropologists there must first bury their disputes. Rex Dalton reports from the field.

    • Rex Dalton

  • News |

    Radioactive isotopes nail the timeline of Egyptian dynasties.

    • Richard Lovett

  • News & Views |

    The sequencing of ancient DNA is generating dramatic results. The sequence from a bone fragment has revealed the existence of an unknown type of extinct human ancestor that lived in Asia 40,000 years ago.

    • Terence A. Brown

  • Letter
    | Open Access

    Ancient mitochondrial DNA from a hominin individual who lived in the mountains of Central Asia between 48,000–30,000 years ago has been sequenced. Comparative genomics suggest that this mitochondrial DNA derives from an out-of-Africa migration distinct from the ones that gave rise to Neanderthals and modern humans. It also seems that this hominin lived in close spatio-temporal proximity to Neanderthals and modern humans.

    • Johannes Krause
    • , Qiaomei Fu
    •  & Svante Pääbo

  • News |

    Stone tools reveal that hominins lived on the Indonesian island of Flores a million years ago.

    • Rex Dalton

  • Books & Arts |

    We need realism, not positivity, to learn lessons from past societal demises, urges Jared Diamond.

    • Jared Diamond

  • News |

    Experts question claims that malaria and osteonecrosis contributed to Pharaoh's decline.

    • Declan Butler

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