Two new studies found that ancient human ancestors carried a surprising diversity of genes for amylase, an enzyme that breaks ...

Modern humans and Neanderthals clearly interbred, genetic evidence shows, but exactly where and when has remained murky. Now, ...

Discoveries from the genomes of the last Neanderthals are rewriting the story of how our own species came to replace them ...

A new study reveals how the duplication of the salivary amylase gene may not only have helped shape human adaptation to starchy foods, but may have occurred as far back as more than 800,000 years ago, ...

A complex picture of how Neanderthals died out, and the role that modern humans played in their disappearance, is emerging.

That study, in the journal Nature, suggested that humans acquired more copies of amylase genes with the arrival of ...

anatomically modern humans — such as the leather outfit of 5,000-year-old Ötzi the Ice Man — no one has found similar evidence at Neanderthal sites. But there is circumstantial evidence ...

Research shows some African populations have almost no Neanderthal DNA, while those from European or Asian backgrounds have 1 ...

A new ecological model suggests Neanderthals and modern humans interbred in the Zagros Mountains in what is now Iran before going their separate ways 80,000 years ago. Modern humans and ...

Analyzing the genomes of 68 ancient humans, including a 45,000-year-old sample from Siberia, the researchers found that ...

The conclusions are tentative, but it’s possible our closest relatives relied too much on the advantage gravity gave them.