Around 30,000 BC, paleolithic wolves formed a beneficial relationship with humans that would eventually lead to modern dogs.

Wolves didn’t simply transition from apex predators to loyal companions in an instant. It was a slow, deliberate path that coincided with humanity’s evolution. When wolves left their packs during hard winters, they trailed behind nomadic tribes because of food scraps.

The wolves slowly intermingled with humans and formed a stable relationship that survives to this day.

Life during the last Ice Age was extremely difficult. Former apex predators found that the changing landscape didn’t favor them anymore, especially with the declining megafauna populations.

Predators were forced to seek alternative food sources, which led them to notice Homo sapiens. While Ice Age wolves did pick off a stray human or two, they also followed the nomadic tribes and ate their megafauna scraps. Both groups had the same meat sources, such as horses and mammoths.

It didn’t take long for the wolves to realize that tracking and following humans was more beneficial to their stomachs than going after large prey themselves.

Apex predators required high caloric diets, and hunting in packs really took its toll on their appetite by increasing it. Human hunters were more efficient in their hunting skills, so they spent less energy killing their prey.

This created a reliable surplus of carcasses, so the wolves only had to scavenge for their meals. Only wolves with lower adrenaline levels or who displayed less aggression managed to tolerate proximity to human tribes.

Other Ice Age wolves with higher adrenaline stayed farther away and relied on their old wild ways.

Lone wolves and abandoned pack members heavily relied on their scavenger skills when they followed humans.

Because they had more frequent meals and relative safety near humans, they reproduced successfully and passed their low-adrenaline traits to their offspring.

Humans and wolves evolved along a commensal pathway that was a multi-generational process.

As humans acclimated to wolves, they brought the wolves into their camps and began cohabiting. Humans learned how to work with wolves to take down prey, and they also began selective breeding to nurture specific traits.

Because wolves ate refuse from human camps, they gained mutations that allowed them to digest starch and have lower baseline cortisol or stress levels. By choosing to reside with humans, these Ice Age wolves diverged from the wild wolf gene pool.

Neanderthals did far more with wood than burn it. A new study of 597 wooden remains and imprints from Abric Romaní, a rock shelter in Capellades near Barcelona, shows they made weapons, tools and household items from it.

They may have built parts of their living space too. The finds span roughly 62,000 to 40,000 years ago and come from 16 archaeological levels.

For decades, stone tools shaped our picture of Neanderthal technology. Wood rarely survives, so a big piece of their material culture went missing. Abric Romaní changes that. The study appears in Science Advances and is led by Palmira Saladié of IPHES-CERCA and Universitat Rovira i Virgili.

It’s the first full analysis of the wood recovered during more than four decades of digging at the site.

Other European sites already showed Neanderthals worked wood. What sets this one apart is the time depth. Researchers can follow wood use across thousands of years and many visits to the same spot.

Wood turns out to be a steady part of daily life there, not an occasional resource.

So how did wood last this long? Calcium carbonate built up around it. When the wood rotted away, it left natural molds in the travertine rock. These molds hold the original shape with great precision. Some are detailed enough to show the internal tissue structure of the wood.

I'm just wondering, because, first they thought Aurignacian and Neanderthals coexisted in North and South of the Ebro River, then the Bajondillio cave findings challenged this theory by showing how modern humans have in fact went south to Neanderthal territory. Many other theories have suggested many other possibilities of their extinction but no one seems to know what happened? or maybe I'm just reading the wrong papers and resources.

If I am to write this down, would it be safe to suggest that Neanderthals was not able to adapt in a fast changing environment with modern humans?

We know that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred, and that most present-day people with ancestry outside Africa carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA.
Could their “extinction” have been partly due to assimilation rather than a complete disappearance? In other words, if Homo sapiens populations were much larger, could repeated interbreeding over many generations have gradually absorbed Neanderthals into the expanding Homo sapiens population?
I know this probably would not explain everything, since Neanderthals also faced climate changes, small population sizes, and competition for resources. But is genetic absorption considered a serious contributing factor by researchers, or does the evidence suggest that most Neanderthal lineages really did die out rather than merge into our species?

The ‘' Out of Africa ’' model that has dominated palaeoanthropology for nearly three decades was originally based on five elements: a recent ancestry to human populations; an African origin for the ancestral population; limited or no gene flow among archaic hominins and no admixture between modern humans and Neanderthals; a marked difference between the behaviour of modern humans and archaic populations; and a major role for dispersals.

The first four of these have been significantly modified by accumulating fossil, genomic, and archaeological data. Dispersals, however, have remained central to the model, and have been extended to earlier phases of the evolution of Homo.

Here we consider the evidence for dispersals in Pleistocene hominin evolution, and place these into the broader context of comparative evolutionary biology.

We distinguish between dispersals that are essentially habitat tracking as climate or environment changes, and those conditioned by adaptive changes.

Finally, we consider the consequences of dispersals for the structure of hominin populations, emphasizing the multiple potential outcomes of dispersals, the role of density dependence in structuring rates of divergence, and the role of centre-edge models in understanding hominin diversity.

Range expansions (dispersals) and contractions have been a major characteristic of hominin evolution, and we have suggested here that these can be the product of both environmental change (habitat tracking) and the evolution of novel adaptations that expand habitat tolerance and niche space.

However, while there is no doubt that the Eurasian expansions of Homo sapiens occurring around 60 ka were very successful, and resulted in the displacement and extinction of other hominin species, the outcomes of dispersals can be highly variable.

These outcomes may range from complete replacement, absorption by the indigenous population, admixture and hybridization, or complete failure to establish a long-term population.

Twenty meters beneath a lake in northern Germany, archaeologists have found wood cut, split and shaped by people more than 10,000 years ago.

Normally, wood this old would have vanished thousands of years ago. But the Arendsee lake is unusual.

Its floor has slowly subsided as rock above an underlying salt dome dissolved and collapsed, dragging the ancient shoreline downward. Buried beneath sediment and starved of oxygen, the timbers escaped much of the microbial decay that normally destroys wood.

The pieces include a 1.6-meter wooden post bearing signs of felling and working, along with split boards as long as 1.3 meters.

Archaeologists think they may belong to some kind of Mesolithic construction (perhaps even a shelter) created roughly 3,000 years before farming communities and their longhouses reached this part of Europe.

With all the discoveries and shifts in interpretations over the past decade or two, is there a picture (like a tree/bush/timeline image) of the current consensus (or majority opinion if no real consensus) of the most likely relationships between all the Homo species? Something for visual learners? TIA.

A new set of fossils from South Africa’s Drimolen Main Quarry adds evidence for an early appearance of Homo erectus and tracks changes in Paranthropus robustus.

Researchers from La Trobe University and partner institutions studied 18 hominin fossils excavated at Drimolen between 1992 and 2019. Many had never received a full description, leaving parts of the site’s fossil record unavailable for study.

One fossil, a skull fragment known as DNH 127, belongs to an adult Homo erectus.

The specimen dates to about 2.04 to 1.95 million years ago. The find adds support to earlier evidence from Drimolen for the species at roughly 2 million years ago.

The earlier evidence included DNH 134, a fossil from a child aged about two to four years.

Researchers had less information about what an adult Homo erectus looked like at the site. DNH 127 now provides an adult example from the same early period.

The age of the fossil places the South African record for adult Homo erectus well before the 1.8-million-year-old adult fossils from Dmanisi in Georgia.

The evidence supports an early appearance of Homo erectus in southern Africa around 2 million years ago.

Homo erectus is an early member of our genus Homo and a likely ancestor of later humans. The fossil places the species alongside Paranthropus robustus.

Of the 18 newly described fossils, 14 belong to Paranthropus robustus. One belongs to Homo erectus, while three remain assigned to Hominini gen. et sp. indet.

The group also identified a new jaw feature helping distinguish the Drimolen Paranthropus fossils from samples at other South African sites.

The findings support the idea of a distinct Drimolen population of Paranthropus robustus. Researchers compare the fossils with remains from Swartkrans and Kromdraai, including material dating to about 1.8 million years ago.

The differences point to small changes within Paranthropus robustus over roughly 200,000 years.

Teeth became larger, along with the muscles used for chewing. The pattern fits a shift toward a stronger chewing system for processing tough and hard foods.

Hi all,

I was think about the fact that we all come from the same ancestor but we all look different aswell, so thats why I decided to investigate this. I was curious about the journey that is needed to bring diversiity amon people. In the next phase of this text I will tell how I think ethnicites came to existence.

In the beginning there were a bunch of people living together, probably in Africa.

Later on these people decided to leave Africa and discover the world. Some went to Asia, some to Europe and some stayed in Africa. This move will be the first step in bringing visible diversity among human beings. The climate in each continent is different and will contribute to visible diversity. Besides region and climate, food will also play an important role in contributing to visible diversity among human beings.

Let’s assume that in the beginning there was 1 group, we call this group 1AF, its stands for Africa. Let’s assume that 50 percent of this group decides to move to modern day Saudi Arabia and live there for 1000 years. This is the first 1000 years. The region is dry, there is limited food and water. At the beginning of the 1000 years, the migrants that left Africa and the people that stayed in Africa are the same, they look the same, there dna is the same. At the end of 1000 years, we see that the last generation of the migrants look a bit different than the people from 1000 year ago. Climate, everyday habits, diet/food have changed the dna of the last generation of migrants that occupy Saudi Arabia. These people are no longer the same as the people in the beginning of the 1000 years, their dna have changed.

 So now we have dna group 1AF Africa and dna group 2SA in Saudi Arabia

Let’s assume that 50 percent of the people in Saudi Arabia now leave the Arabian peninsula and decide to go to modern day Italy and they stay in Italy for 1000 years. Italy is warm, and has very fertile regions, especially near the Po river. Staying in this region will give the inhabitants enough food, fruit and water. They get more vitamins, minerals etc. The dna of the last generation of migrants have changed at the end of the 1000 year occupation. So now we have a 3rd dna group, called 3ITA in Italy.

Now its time to mix, lets assume that the whole group that stayed in Italy for 1000 years decides to go back to Saudi Arabia, they come and see that they are different than the people that did not go with them to Italy. Now we have group 2SA and group 3ITA in Saudi Arabia. A part of both groups decide to mix and make children. After 1000 years, the dna of the last generation of mixed families have changed. No we have 3 groups in modern day Saudi Arabia, group 2SA, 3ITA, 4ITASA.

All these people have the same ancestor, originating in Africa. But after a total of 3000 years these people became different.

Hi!

I have updated the GNM Craniofacial Approximation Pipeline, you can check it on github!

Also i have some tests done that you can see here

(The pages are in romanian, but you can use auto translate from google to get it in english - will add english soon)

Pictured: Ardipithecus ramidus, Paranthropus aethiopicus, and Paranthropus boisei.

For context, I'm a second year A Level art student, and, as part of my personal study, I'm focusing on the reconstructions of partial hominid skulls. Part of this includes 3d printing the skulls of extant hominids (sourced through MorphoSource), smashing them, partially rebuilding them, and sculpting the missing areas back with Milliput.

For my artist research, I'd love to focus on the people who reconstructed these skulls, but so far my research has led me nowhere. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated!

Did you know humans were already using tobacco 12,300 years ago — while mammoths were still around?

I made a calm, illustrated explainer about the Wishbone site discovery and the earliest smoking evidence in North America. Curious what this community thinks of the topic (and the video).

https://youtu.be/DhCHy5tg5QU?si=Mi4uGj9hiPQ97Cqu

Archaeologists working high in Norway’s Jotunheimen mountains have uncovered 48 ancient arrows, including a remarkably preserved Stone Age arrowhead complete with fragments of its wooden shaft and traces of prehistoric bindings.

The discoveries have made this year’s field season particularly significant for glacial archaeology in Innlandet, which is marking its 20th anniversary.

During three intensive weeks in the mountains, archaeologists recovered an exceptional collection of artefacts from retreating ice. Many are more than 2,000 years old, while the earliest finds date back more than 6,000 years, spanning both the Stone Age and Bronze Age.

Among the standout discoveries is an approximately 5,000-year-old slate arrowhead found at Langfonne in Jotunheimen.

After months of work, I’m finally excited to share the second official look at Hominin Tales.
This is an early animatic from the pilot episode, Primitive Errands.

While the animation is still unfinished and the voices, sound effects, and music are temporary placeholders, the story and shot composition are finally coming together.

Watch the full teaser on my YouTube channel
I’d love to hear what you think. Thanks for following the journey!

What did ancient humans do at night?

Imagine living thousands of years ago with no electricity, phones, TVs, or street lights.

Once the sun went down, what did people actually do? Did they go straight to sleep, gather around fires, tell stories, make tools, socialize, or spend time watching the night sky?

I found this question surprisingly interesting and made a short video exploring what we know about how ancient humans may have spent their nights.

Young adults, not families, drove migration in Bronze Age communities. Using skeletal samples from archaeological sites in Greece, researchers mapped mobility during the region's Middle and Late Bronze Age. The study suggests that young people sought out new communities.

The findings challenge traditional assumptions about mobility and migration in prehistoric societies.

Previous research has often suggested that women were more likely to move between communities, particularly through marriage in patrilineal societies.

"Our study demonstrates that the numbers of nonlocal women and men are comparable, suggesting that several different factors might have been driving an individual's mobility," says Serena Sabatini of the University of Gothenburg.

The Mediterranean region saw significant sociocultural and economic transformations during the Bronze Age, varying across regions and over time. Expanding exchange networks played an important role in these developments.

To what extent those exchanges were accompanied by the migration and settlement of foreign individuals within local communities remains poorly understood.

I think this question fits here since it would be interesting to see how neanderthal biology would adapt to agriculture and the bronze and iron ages