Human evolution

Take a tour through seven million years of human evolution and explore the origin of Homo sapiens.

Find out key facts about our species, Homo sapiens, and how we evolved.

What features make us human? And where, when and why did they evolve?

Find out how Homo sapiens left Africa and migrated to other regions of the world, including Europe, Asia and America.

Many of us carry around two per cent Neanderthal DNA in our genes. Professor Chris Stringer discusses why and what it means.

Our species mated with the Neanderthals much later than thought, tearing up the timeline of human evolution.

Our DNA offers us the chance to look into our ancient past. Discover what six celebrities learned when they had their DNA analysed.

This ancient human was once thought to be the first to make stone tools, but is this true?

Fierce debate has raged about the origins of the tiny ancient human species Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the 'hobbit'.

Learn about the longest-surviving human species, which was also the first known to leave Africa.

Australopithecus afarensis is one of the best-known early human relatives thanks to an extraordinary fossil called Lucy.

Meet your long-lost relative and find out why their discovery has had such an impact on our family tree.

The ancient human species Homo luzonensis is one of the most recent branches to be added to the human evolutionary tree.

A new ancestor of modern humans with the potential to rip up the family tree has been tentatively named.

A huge skull found in China represents a new sister lineage for Homo sapiens.

Professor Chris Stringer addresses this controversial question.

Discover the science and art involved in making our Neanderthal and early modern human models.

Listen to the tale of the first adult Neanderthal skull unearthed and what we've uncovered about our close relative in the past 160 years.

Professor Chris Stringer discusses a fossil that helps explain why Neanderthals looked different to us.

Neanderthals lived fast and died young, developing their teeth earlier than humans to power their rapid growth. 

Breeding with Neanderthals allowed our ancestors to better cope with European winters, but also passed on diseases we suffer today.

Unearth the one-million-year story of humans in Britain and their struggle to survive in a changing land.

Dr Silvia Bello tells us about the gruesome yet fascinating behaviour of people living in a Somerset cave 14,700 years ago.

Discover how the changing climate of the past million years affected Britain's coastline and the presence of humans.

Follow the progress of a team of scientists as they realise they have uncovered human footprints that are around 900,000 years old.

Scientists have taken a step forward in understanding how our species survived outside Africa.

Butchered remains of great bustards have been found in the graves of people buried 15,000 years ago. 

The fossil expands the Denisovan's known range by thousands of kilometres and provides new insights into how this species looked.

New research is shedding light on the lives ancient humans who lived in a lush and green Sahara Desert.

TV presenter, author and academic Alice Roberts shares memories of the Museum and how it influenced her fascination with human evolution.

Our species has been living in tropical forests for at least 150,000 years.

Our species mated with the Neanderthals much later than thought, tearing up the timeline of human evolution.

Researchers are probing what it means to be a separate species.

Buried alongside this individual were a range of symbolic objects.

The fossils show Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei lived alongside each other.

The rib bone suggests that the Denisovans may have been living in eastern Asia as recently as 32,000 years ago.

The first modern humans to live in northern Europe arrived more than 45,000 years ago.

Going back to basics could help to unlock the mysteries of our origins.

Professor Chris Stringer, our longest-serving researcher, is set to be honoured for his contributions to human evolution.

Dental plaque may help to reveal what prehistoric humans ate.

Human bones with cutmarks, breaks and human chewing marks are found across northern Europe. 

Almost 99% of all human ancestors may have been wiped out around 930,000 years ago, a new paper has claimed.

Melting polar ice caps may have pushed some of the first ancient humans out of Europe.

Neanderthals might have been making some of Europe’s oldest art thousands of years before the arrival of humans.

Our ancient relatives may have reached southeast Asia over 10,000 years earlier than thought.

New claims argue that the ancient human species Homo naledi buried their dead and made engravings.

A new technique allows researchers to extract the DNA of people who have handled bone artefacts, giving clues about prehistoric cultures.

Early humans, and an ancient relative, may have been using complex stone tools as early as three million years ago. 

A chink in the armour of giant South American armadillos may have left them vulnerable to human hunting.

Fossils discovered in Sussex were compared to human remains found in Spain from a similar time period to see if the populations are linked.

The question of how the Neanderthals died out remains one of the biggest mysteries in human evolution.

The sequencing of the oldest human DNA in the UK so far.

Neanderthals may have lived in small groups of around 10 to 20, with females moving between the different communities. 

While their function remains uncertain, the sinuses provide an insight into how ancient human skulls changed over time.

The people after which England is named made up more than three quarters of the nation's genetic ancestry during the early Middle Ages.

The twelfth century skeletons have provided an unprecedented look at the genetic history of Ashkenazi Jews. 

Measuring almost two metres tall, Leptoptilos robustus would have lived in a unique ecosystem which included the mysterious miniature human relative Homo floresiensis. 

Genyornis newtoni may have become extinct after humans stole and ate its eggs.

The tooth of a young girl living hundreds of thousands of years ago may be from the Denisovans, an extinct hominid species of which very little is known. 

Modern humans arrived in western Europe about 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Evidence of increasing carnivory in ancient humans may just be a quirk of sampling.

The genetic landscape of England and Wales was shaken up thousands of years ago as new arrivals redefined its people.

A series of ancient lake beds discovered in Saudi Arabia is showing how the now arid deserts were once green wetlands.

Dating to roughly 78,000 years old, the grave is the oldest human burial discovered in Africa to date. 

When modern humans arrived in the islands of southeast Asia, they may have encountered a range of ancient human species. 

Rather than a violent turnover of populations, there was a merging of communities.

Genetic and fossil records do not reveal a single point where modern humans originated, researchers have found. 

Bronze Age people were keeping human body parts and preserving them.

Prehistoric societies in the Britain were creating artistic designs on rock as long ago as the late Ice Age.

Africa and Eurasia were inhabited by a whole range of hominin species just a few hundred thousand years ago.

The introduction of farming across the world changed the course of human history.

The earliest human drawing, dating back to the Stone Age, has been found in a cave in South Africa. 

Fragments of bone from a Siberian cave reveal ancient human species were mating.

A new paper challenges the traditional idea that our species evolved from a single population in one region of Africa.

Remains of young people who were ritually sacrificed have been found from Bronze Age Mesopotamia.

Ancient DNA reveals that the British population was all but wiped out and replaced roughly 4,400 years ago.

A newly-discovered fossil jawbone has revealed that Homo sapiens had already left Africa 180,000 years ago.