Ann Gibbons
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correspondent for Science/author who writes about evolution
Articles by Ann Gibbons
Why were mysterious ancient humans found in an African cave all female?
Just when scientists thought the mystery of how two dozen ancient human skeletons came to rest in a pit deep inside a South African cave couldn’t get any stranger, an unexpected finding adds a new twist: All of the dead were apparently female. Scientists extracted ancient proteins from the tooth enamel of 20 members of the small-brained hominin Homo naledi that were deposited deep in the Rising Star Cave system between 241,000 and 335,000 years ago.
První lidé
Podtitul: Závody v hledání nejstaršího předka Ann Gibbonsová, která už více než deset let píše o evoluci člověka pro časopis Science, je autorkou čtivé a dynamické knihy o hledání „spojovacího článku“ mezi lidoopy a lidmi. Přední mezinárodní týmy složené z nejlepších paleoantropologů pátrají v africké poušti po pozůstatcích nejstarších hominidů. Kdo z nich uspěje?
The earliest Homo species did not look human, partial skeleton shows
For almost 60 years, Homo habilis has enjoyed a place of honor as the earliest member of our genus, Homo. The skull of the so-called “handy man” had a flatter face and bigger brain than earlier hominins, and was found alongside stone tools that suggested it was on its way to becoming more like a human. But its body looked more primitive, according to a newly described partial skeleton of the species published today in The Anatomical Record.
A puzzling, 3.4-million-year-old fossil foot belonged to a contemporary of the famed Lucy
The owner of a mysterious 3.4-million-year-old fossilized foot unearthed 15 years ago in Ethiopia has finally been identified. Other nearby, newly discovered fossils—including fragments of a pelvis, skull, and jawbone with 12 teeth—tie the foot to a primitive human relative known as Australopithecus deyiremeda, an enigmatic contemporary of A. afarensis, whose species included the famed Lucy skeleton.
An ancient cousin to humans probably built tools with its huge hands
If you’d met a stocky hominin 1.5 million years ago striding along the lakeshore of what is now Lake Turkana in Kenya, you might have thought twice before shaking its hand. The first fossil hand from a robust human cousin known as Paranthropus boisei shows it had surprisingly big—yet also dexterous—hands, researchers report today in Nature.
Great Britain’s economy didn’t completely tank after Romans left, countering conventional wisdom
Martin Millett thought the mud of an ancient riverbed in northern England would confirm conventional wisdom that the end of Roman rule in Great Britain brought economic collapse. He expected levels of pollutants in the core sample, taken from the River Ure in Yorkshire, to fall as local mines went quiet. Instead, he was floored to see that iron and lead levels rose steadily for 2 centuries after the Roman Empire collapsed and its legions left Great Britain.
[转载]News from Science-303
Weekly Headlines (Excerpts) 1. ‘Things keep evolving into anteaters.’ Odd animals arose at least 12 separate times Findings speak to the dramatic impact ants and termites can have on mammalian evolution 25 Jul 2025 By Jake Buehler 2. This trilobite fossil became ancient Roman bling It’s the first example of this common fossil found in the ancient Roman world 24 Jul 2025 By Taylor Mitchell Brown 3.
The riddle of coexistence
Hominins who might have seen each other 2 million years ago in South Africa (left to right): Homo erectus (reconstruction based on an adult female), Australopithecus sediba (young male from Malapa), and Paranthropus robustus (adult male from Drimolen). One morning in April 2014, José Braga squatted at the bottom of an open pit, cleaning a wall of red sediments with a trowel.
Robots that eat other robots, and an ancient hot spot of early human relatives
First up on the podcast, South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind is home to the world’s greatest concentration of ancestral human remains, including our own genus, Homo, Australopithecus, and a more robust hominin called Paranthropus. Proving they were there at the same time is challenging, but new fossil evidence seems to point to coexistence. Producer Kevin McLean discusses what a multihominin landscape might have looked like with Contributing Correspondent Ann Gibbons.
Neanderthals may have eaten maggots as part of their diet
Neanderthals were hypercarnivores at the top of the food chain, eating as much meat as hyenas and cave lions. Or at least many researchers have assumed. But meat wasn’t the only thing on their menu, according to a presentation last week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists: Our close cousins may have consumed lots of maggots.
Fossil face found in Spanish cave belongs to first known Western European
On his first day digging in a Spanish cave in 2022, archaeology graduate student Edgar Téllez found something spectacular: a mud-covered facial bone with tooth roots intact. His colleague,
archaeologist Rosa Huguet, took a look. “I was 95% sure we had found a human fossil, but I didn’t dare say it was human remains,” says Huguet, who is at the Research Centers of Catalonia’s Catalan Institute for Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution at Rovira i Virgii University.
‘Eloquent’ mice point to protein that may have shaped human speech
A few years ago Yoko Tajima played matchmaker with a male and a female mouse, putting them together in a small dark cage. The male began courting the female with a series of squeaks too high-pitched for humans to hear. But as Tajima and César Vargas, a fellow neuroscience postdoc at Rockefeller University, watched the soundwaves crest and fall on a spectrogram, they exchanged a surprised look. The ultrasonic sweet talk was unusually complex. The pair rushed the recordings to their advisors.
What animals can teach us about the challenges of being a teen
BETHESDA, MARYLAND—On a humid morning in May 2024, two young male chimpanzees in the Kibale Forest of Uganda sat sponging up water from a puddle with a leaf and languidly dribbling it into their mouths. Suddenly, an adolescent female chimp named Virginia threw a large branch at one of them. Her bottom was pink and swollen, signaling that at age 10, she was beginning to mature sexually.
One day 1.5 million years ago, two or three individuals of our genus Homo walked along a muddy lakeshore. Hours before or after they passed, another member of the human family, likely the smaller brained, big-jawed Paranthropus, hurried along the same shoreline. These early hominins would have seen giant cranes, ancient horses and antelopes—and, possibly, each other, according to a new study of their intermingled footprints published today in Science.
50 Jahre Lucy - Spektrum der Wissenschaft
Hintergrund Lesedauer ca. 15 Minuten Drucken Teilen 50 Jahre Lucy: Lucys Welt Ein halbes Jahrhundert nach seiner Entdeckung gilt das 3,2 Millionen Jahre alte Fossil des Australopithecus afarensis immer noch als Urmutter aller Menschen. Doch »Lucy« hat Konkurrenz bekommen. An die Entdeckung des berühmten Fossils »Lucy« 1974 in Hadar in der äthiopischen Region Afar erinnert sich Zeresenay Alemseged nicht mehr. Er war damals erst fünf Jahre alt und lebte in der 600 Kilometer entfernten Stadt Aksum.
Why do humans mature so slowly? An ancient youth offers clues
As the parent of any teenager knows, humans need a long time to grow up: We take about twice as long as chimpanzees to reach adulthood. Anthropologists theorize that our long childhood and adolescence allow us to build comparatively bigger brains or learn skills that help us survive and reproduce. Now, a study of an ancient youth’s teeth suggests a slow pattern of growth appeared at least 1.8 million years ago, half a million years earlier than any previous evidence for delayed dental development.
The most ancient human genome yet has been sequenced-and it’s a Denisovan’s
By the time population geneticist Stéphane Peyrégne gave his talk Tuesday afternoon at a meeting in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, rumors had circulated and the auditorium was packed. He didn’t disappoint: “I’m pleased to tell you about a new Denisovan genome from a 200,000-year-old male,” said Peyrégne, a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Neanderthals and modern humans mingled early and often
or decades researchers have been uncovering the genes living people owe to the extinct Neanderthals—a genetic legacy that boosts our immune systems, helps our blood clot, and may play a role in depression. Now, a study of ancient DNA turns the tables on Neanderthals and asks: What did they get from us? A paper this week in Science concludes Neanderthals inherited as much as 10% of their genome from modern humans, including several genes involved in brain development.
After suspension for sexual harassment, prominent biologist’s return to campus prompts dismay
A leading developmental biologist at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) this spring resumed teaching and supervising students, including undergraduates, ending a 3-month suspension without pay imposed after the school found he had likely engaged in persistent, pervasive sexual harassment.
Chimps use more plant medicines than any other animal
For several decades, evidence has accumulated that animals turn to medicinal plants to relieve their ailments. Chimpanzees (and some other species) swallow leaves to mechanically clear the gut of parasites. Chimps also rely on the ingested pith of an African relative of the daisy, Vernonia amygdalina, to rid themselves of intestinal worms. Dolphins rub against antibacterial corals and sponges to treat skin infections.
Meet the world’s first known jumping leech … if you dare
$ Please enter a valid amount Email: Please enter a valid email Country: I also wish to receive emails from AAAS/Science and Science advertisers, including information on products, services and special offers which may include but are not limited to news, careers information & upcoming events. Support nonprofit science journalism Sophisticated, trustworthy reporting about science has never been more important.
Report slams Dutch archaeologist couple for intimidation, abuse of power, and theft of human remains
In 2009, during one of their research trips to the Caribbean, two Dutch archaeologists specializing in the Indigenous peoples of the region had a problem: They wanted to study the molars from skulls stored at a local depot but didn’t have a permit to extract them. But Leiden University’s Corinne Hofman and Menno Hoogland, who are married, found a dubious workaround, according to testimony from three people recounted in an investigation the school released last week.
Forced to eat bat feces, chimps could spread deadly viruses to humans
On a sunny day 7 years ago in the Budongo Forest Reserve in Uganda, researchers were startled to observe chimpanzees scoop dry bat feces from under a hollow tree and devour it. In 60 years of observations at Budongo, no one had ever seen such a thing, recalls veterinary epidemiologist Tony Goldberg of the University of Wisconsin—Madison. “Aside from the ick factor, we all had the exact same thought,” he says. “They must be exposed to horrible bat-borne viruses.” That suspicion proved correct.
Bonobos, the ‘hippie chimps,’ might not be so mellow after all
It was 5 a.m., and Maud Mouginot was waiting for the Sun to rise over the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve. Suddenly, two male bonobos—close relatives of chimpanzees—came hurtling out of the darkness, one rushing through the trees, the other giving chase. The terrified cries of the fleeing male suggested this was no friendly game of tag. Mouginot, a biological anthropologist at Boston University, hadn’t expected such behavior from bonobos, which, unlike chimps, have a reputation for making love, not war.
Sunday Science: Lucy’s World
Sunday Science: Lucy’s World Published April 7, 2024 Zeresenay Alemseged doesn’t remember the 1974 discovery of the famous fossil Lucy at Hadar in Ethiopia, because he was 5 years old, living 600 kilometers away in Axum. Later he saw Lucy’s name on cafes and taxis, but he knew little about her until he became a geologist working at the National Museum of Ethiopia. Then, she changed his life.
ScienceAdviser: The bright future of intelligent fabrics
Today’s Deep Dive delves into the mystery of how we mammals evolved our special ears. But first, catch up on the latest science news, including a smart fabric that glows without batteries and how diverse croplands are better for the health and happiness of humans.
Was Lucy the mother of us all? Fifty years after discovery, famed skeleton has rivals
Zeresenay Alemseged doesn’t remember the 1974 discovery of the famous fossil Lucy at Hadar in Ethiopia, because he was 5 years old, living 600 kilometers away in Axum. Later he saw Lucy’s name on cafes and taxis, but he knew little about her until he became a geologist working at the National Museum of Ethiopia. Then, she changed his life.
When did rats come to the Americas, and was Lucy really our direct ancestor?
Charles Barney Corey, The mammals of Illinois and Wisconsin, 1912 First on the show: Did rats come over with Christopher Columbus? It turns out, European colonists weren’t alone on their ships when they came to the Americas—they also brought black and brown rats to uninfested shores.
Mysterious ‘comb’ drawings may be among oldest cave paintings in South America
The soaring stone walls of Argentina’s Huenul Cave, a 630-meter-square rock shelter in northern Patagonia, are covered by nearly 900 distinct paintings of geometric shapes, people, and animals. In vivid shades of red, white, yellow, and black, their style resembles those of rock art found elsewhere in Patagonia, estimated to be a few thousand years old at most.
‘Tag!’ Other great apes share our affinity for playful teasing
$ Please enter a valid amount Email: Please enter a valid email Country: I also wish to receive emails from AAAS/Science and Science advertisers, including information on products, services and special offers which may include but are not limited to news, careers information & upcoming events. Support nonprofit science journalism Sophisticated, trustworthy reporting about science has never been more important.
Strange wall of stones found beneath Baltic Sea may have helped humans hunt reindeer
During a research cruise to map an underwater ridge off the German coast in 2021, Jacob Geersen and his students took acoustic scans of the bottom of the Baltic Sea. But something strange emerged from their images: A line of objects, 21 meters down, ran across the sea floor for nearly 1 kilometer. Most were between the size of a tennis ball and a soccer ball. Others were as large as small cars, up to 3 meters across.
Mutations in same gene allow two different groups of humans to thrive at extreme altitudes
The high life is a lot harder than it sounds. Most people are accustomed to living at low elevations and struggle to breathe at high altitudes. But thin air isn’t a problem for the Quechua people of Peru, who have survived—and thrived—high in the Andes Mountains for more than 10,000 years. Now, the authors of a new study published in Science Advances have pinpointed a genetic variant that may have helped this population adapt to life at extraordinary heights.
Strong monsoons may have carved a path for early humans out of Africa
More than 140,000 years ago, East Asia was a much colder, drier place than today—a landscape that likely deterred many African creatures, humans among them, from venturing into the region. Then, some 100,000 years ago, roving members of our species may have reached East Asia and found a rain-soaked, verdant landscape. What changed?
Chimps remember the faces of old friends and family for decades
Louise hadn’t seen her sister or nephew for 26 years. Yet the moment she spotted them on a computer screen, she recognized them, staring hard at their faces. The feat might have been impressive enough for a human, but Louise is a bonobo—one who had spent most of her life at a separate sanctuary from these relatives.
African animals prefer to graze in spots once inhabited by Iron Age humans
Survey a savanna bush in southern Africa, where a sea of tall grasses sways in the wind, dotted with herds of antelope, shrubs, and acacia trees, and you might think you were in a pristine landscape untouched by humans. But the continent’s grazing animals know better.
Patagonian people were riding horses long before Europeans arrived
The first Europeans to visit the southernmost tip of South America marveled at the people they met there. They were so tall, one version of the story goes, that Ferdinand Magellan’s 16th century crew dubbed them “Patagones,” from the Spanish for “big foot.” The name came to describe Patagonia, the southern tip of South America as well. Two hundred years after Magellan’s visit, a British sailor stranded in the region recorded a very different picture.
Ancient Siberian cave hosted Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans-possibly at the same time
A decade ago, anthropologists shocked the world when they discovered a fossil pinkie bone from a then-unknown group of extinct humans in Siberia's Denisova Cave. The group was named "Denisovans" in its honor. Now, an extensive analysis of DNA in the cave's soils reveals it also hosted modern humans—who arrived early enough that they may have once lived there alongside Denisovans and Neanderthals.
Half-million-year-old ‘Lincoln Logs’ may be first wood structure made by ancient humans
Every archaeological dig at Kalambo Falls is a race against time. The area near this giant waterfall, near Zambia’s border with Tanzania, is a rich archaeological site. But seasonal flooding forces researchers to quickly excavate before artifacts are washed away. In 2019, however, the river chose to reveal rather than destroy.
[转载]News from Science-205
Weekly Headlines (excerpts) 1. Humans aren’t the only fat primate By Ann Gibbons | Wed, 6 Sep 2023 2. German science organizations strike open-access deal with Elsevier By Gretchen Vogel | Wed, 6 Sep 2023 3. Were these stone balls made by ancient human relatives trying to perfect the sphere? By Phie Jacobs | Tue, 5 Sep 2023 4. Stress turns tiny worm into a big-mouthed cannibal By Christie Wilcox | Fri, 8 Sep 2023 5. Should I get a COVID-19 booster? By Jon Cohen | Fri, 8 Sep 2023 6.
Humans aren’t the only fat primate
Go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and you’re unlikely to encounter chimps so plump they have trouble climbing trees or vervet monkeys so chubby they huff and puff as they swing from branch to branch. Humans are a different story. Walk down a typical U.S. street and almost half of the people you encounter are likely to have obesity. Scientists have long blamed our status as the “fattest primate” on genes that help us store fat more efficiently or diets overloaded with sugars or fat.
Were these stone balls made by ancient human relatives trying to perfect the sphere?
When scientists excavated a 1.4-million-year-old site in northern Israel in the 1960s, they were stumped by the presence of nearly 600 plum-size stone balls alongside more usual stone tools such as hand axes. These rocky orbs had no discernible purpose, and some speculated they may have been debris produced while making other tools. Now, researchers suggest that our ancient relatives intentionally crafted these spheres, perhaps for the sheer joy of creating symmetry.
Ancient humans traveled half the world to Asia before main migration out of Africa
DNA leaves little doubt: All non-Africans alive today descend from a single wave of migration out of Africa, perhaps sometime between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. But over the years, scientists have found a handful of modern human sites that suggest our species may have wandered from its birthplace even earlier. A study published today in Nature Communications provides some of the strongest evidence yet of such an early dispersal, thousands of kilometers from Africa.
Was a small-brained human relative the world’s first gravedigger-and artist?
A trio of papers posted online and presented at a meeting today lays out an astonishing scenario. Roughly 240,000 years ago, they suggest, small-brained human relatives carried their dead through a labyrinth of tight passageways into the dark depths of a vast limestone cave system in South Africa. Working by firelight, these diminutive cave explorers dug shallow graves, sometimes arranging bodies in fetal positions and placing a stone tool near a child’s hand.
‘Lost’ microbial genes found in dental plaque of ancient humans
About 19,000 years ago, a woman died in northern Spain. Her body was deliberately buried with pieces of the natural pigment ochre and placed behind a block of limestone in a cave known as El Mirón. When her ochre-dyed bones were unearthed in 2010, archaeologists dubbed her the Red Lady. The careful treatment of her body provided scientists with insights into how people from the time buried their dead.
Who wore this ancient deer pendant? DNA reveals a Stone Age woman with surprising origins
Twenty thousand years ago, someone dropped a deer-tooth pendant in a cave in southwestern Siberia, where it lay until archaeologists excavated it in 2019. Now, researchers have caught a glimpse of its last wearer. After years of effort, Elena Essel, a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (EVA), developed a way to extract DNA embedded in an artifact’s porous surface by sweat and skin cells.
Modern lager arose when a beer and an ale met in a Munich brewhouse Original
Share: If you like lager, chances are you’ve got a 17th century brewmaster to thank for it. The commercial yeast used to brew most modern lagers was created when the pasty yeast slurries for a white ale and a brown beer mixed in a cellar of the original Munich Hofbräuhaus—not to be confused with the beer hall there today—sometime between 1602 and 1615, according to a new synthesis of historical brewing records and genetic histories of yeast.
Lush wetlands in Arabia lured waves of early humans out of Africa
If you know what to look for in dappled satellite images of desert—slight depressions, subtle color shifts—the dried-up ghosts of prehistoric lakes pop out against the sand fields of the Arabian Peninsula. Eight years ago, one ancient multihued lake in the Nefud Desert caught the eye of researchers.
Did more than one ancient human relative use early stone tools? Original
As thunder boomed and dark rain clouds gathered on the last day of the field season in Kenya in 2017, paleoanthropologist Emma Finestone was rushing to record the location of fossils while excavators were hoisting an ancient hippo skeleton out of the ground. “I was worried she would get struck by lightning because she was on top of a hill,” says Tom Plummer, a paleoanthropologist at Queens College who led the excavation at Nyayanga, near Lake Victoria.
The calorie counter - Evolutionary anthropologist Herman Pontzer busts myths about how humans burn calories—and why | MATR
Our range includes a flat range from 10-100 yards as well as a 20 target walking course for more realistic simulation of hunting scenarios.
Mysterious ancient humans may have given people of Papua New Guinea an immune advantage
When modern humans first migrated from Africa to the tropical islands of the southwest Pacific, they encountered unfamiliar people and new pathogens. But their immune systems may have picked up some survival tricks when they mated with the locals—the mysterious Denisovans who gave them immune gene variants that might have protected the newcomers’ offspring from local diseases. Some of these variants still persist in the genomes of people living in Papua New Guinea today, according to a new study.
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