Features

Homo luzonensis: The Surprising Human Species of the Philippines

Described in 2019 from 13 fossil specimens found in Callao Cave in the Philippines, Homo luzonensis lived on Luzon 67,000 years ago. Its multi-rooted teeth and curved phalanges match no other known species, and its presence on an island with no land bridge raises fascinating questions about the navigational abilities of ancient hominins.

Environment

Pliocene and Early Pleistocene: the world that forged our ancestors

From 7 to 0.78 million years ago, Africa dried out, savannas spread, and the megafauna of large mammals reached its peak. A world in upheaval that forced hominins to innovate.

Homo georgicus: The First Human Outside Africa

At Dmanisi in Georgia, five skulls aged 1.8 million years revolutionize the history of human evolution. Discover the oldest hominins ever found outside Africa.

Arkaim and the Sintashta Civilisation: The Enigma of the Ural Bronze Age

In 1987, the chance discovery of a circular Bronze Age city buried in the southern Ural steppe shook our understanding of Eurasian protohistory. Arkaim and the Sintashta culture, its builders, are now at the heart of debates about the origins of Indo-European peoples, the invention of the war chariot, and the rise of the first warrior societies of the steppe.

Hominins

Homo erectus: The First World Conqueror, from Africa to Java

For 1.8 million years, Homo erectus colonised three continents, invented the Acheulean handaxe, tamed fire, and cared for its elderly. This dossier traces the history of the most long-lived human species: its discoveries, anatomy, migrations, and the mysteries it still poses.

Palaeoanthropology

Homo floresiensis: the 'hobbit' of Flores island

Discovered in 2003 in Liang Bua cave (Indonesia), Homo floresiensis stood barely a metre tall. Tiny brain, stone tools, hunting of dwarf elephant: this island cousin upends everything we thought we knew about human evolution in South-East Asia.

Asia

Origins of China: Two Million Years of Prehistory

From Peking Man to the bronzes of Sanxingdui, from Yangshao painted pottery to Shang oracle bones: a 25-minute journey through one of the longest and most diverse regional prehistories in the world.

Palaeogenetics

The Denisovans: a humanity revealed by its DNA

From a single finger bone dug up in Siberia, genetics conjured an unknown humanity. Denisovans still live on in the DNA of Asian and Oceanian peoples, and one of their genes now helps Tibetans breathe at altitude.

Peopling

Sahul: the great crossing to Australia, 65,000 years ago

Reaching Australia from Asia meant crossing open sea, never seeing the far shore. 65,000 years ago, people did it, the oldest open-water voyaging in human history.