Paleoanthropologist Rick Potts, Ph.D., who directs the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, will deliver a lecture March 3 at 5 p.m. at the School ...

The museum’s groundbreaking Hall of Human Origins centers around the adaptations that set early humans apart Jack Tamisiea What does it mean to be human? This question, deceptively simple and imbued ...

The origin of the human lineage ~7 million years ago seems far removed from the Early Miocene (23 to 16 million years ago), but in fact there are surprising resonances in the anatomy, environment, and ...

WASHINGTON – As visitors walk into the rotunda of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, they’re greeted by an 11-ton taxidermized African Bush elephant, affectionately nicknamed Henry.

Human evolution’s biggest mystery, which emerged 15 years ago from a 60,000-year-old pinkie finger bone, finally started to unravel in 2025. Analysis of DNA extracted from the fossil electrified the ...

(CNN) — Human evolution’s biggest mystery, which emerged 15 years ago from a 60,000-year-old pinkie finger bone, finally started to unravel in 2025. Analysis of DNA extracted from the fossil ...

South Africa has one of the world's richest fossil records of hominins (humans and their fossil ancestors). But many misconceptions still exist regarding human evolution, and school textbooks contain ...