(Reuters) - The incorporation of meat into the diet was a milestone for the human evolutionary lineage, a potential catalyst for advances such as increased brain size. But scientists have struggled to ...

The famous 3.2-million-year-old Lucy specimen has captivated scientists since it was discovered in 1974. Lucy was a member of the species Australopithecus afarensis, which walked upright and likely ...

With long limbs and a big brain, the ancient hominin Australopithecus afarensis is among the most human-like of our potential ancestors. Exactly how A. afarensis combined human- and ape-like traits ...

The species Australopithecus afarensis inhabited East Africa more than three million years ago, and occupies a key position in the hominin family tree, as it is widely accepted to be ancestral to all ...

April 1 (UPI) --The early hominin Australopithecus afarensis-- known to many as Lucy -- walked upright and boasted a brain 20 percent bigger than a chimp's. Some scientists estimate Lucy used simple ...

The ape-like human ancestor Australopithecus—perhaps best known from the iconic fossil ‘Lucy’—might not have had much meat on its menu. After examining more than 3.3-million-year-old remains from ...

Scientists have long been able to measure and analyze the fossil skulls of our ancient ancestors to estimate brain volume and growth. The question of how these ancient brains compare to modern human ...

Natural history is a difficult thing to conceptualize. You’ve got eons of undocumented progress, like the evolution of many species. Take, for example, the Australopithecus, an ancient great ape ...

In his book Wonderful Life, Professor Stephen Jay Gould – an evolutionary biologist, paleontologist, and widely-read popular science author – described the evolution of life in the following way: Life ...

In paleoanthropology, a rare, nearly-complete skeleton can rewrite entire chapters of the human origin story. The “Little ...

How did human intelligence evolve? Anthropologists have studied this question for decades by looking at tools found in archaeological digs, evidence of the use of fire and so on, and changes in brain ...

Three-million-year old brain imprints in fossil skulls of the species Australopithecus afarensis (famous for 'Lucy' and 'Selam' from Ethiopia) shed new light on the evolution of brain growth and ...