In pursuit of knowledge, the evolution of humanity ranks with the origins of life and the universe. And yet, except when an ...

Our understanding of human ancestry has changed dramatically since the discovery of Lucy the ancient hominin 50 years ago.

In southern Africa, meanwhile, Homo naledi was a primitive-seeming species that dates back just 300,000 years, and seems likely to have been a small-brained descendant of an early Homo erectus.

Lucy may be the best-known prehuman fossil in the world. But other famous fossils have given us important insight into our ...

The fellowship that we call humanity contains some unlikely characters, not least of all a diminutive extinct species known ...

In fact, Homo erectus may represent a group of similar species that existed in parallel – and that in some locations, could be quite varied. The single site of Dmanisi has offered up as much variety ...

A collection of 3-million-year-old bones unearthed 50 years ago in Ethiopia changed our understanding of human origins.

NPR's Scott Simon speaks with paleoanthropologist, Donald Johanson, about the 50th anniversary of his biggest discovery, Lucy, an early human ancestor.

The 3.2-million-year-old human ancestor known as Lucy sparked a revolution in scientists’ understanding of the origins of ...