Humans

In recent history, one of the most severe winters and ice ages occurred during the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum, over 20,000 years ago. Just picture the early human experience at the time. The world is covered in ice, the food is scarce, the temperature is freezing almost all day long, and the environment … Read more

Have you ever seen an image of a cave art or painting made thousands of years ago? You probably think it was mostly for fun and entertainment, but is that all it really is for? More than 40,000 years ago, humans are believed to have begun creating art in their caves, including drawings of animals … Read more

Humans are not the only species that utilizes tools. Animals like chimpanzees use sticks to fish for termites in the wild and crack nuts using stones, and this is just one example out of many others. But there’s no other species that comes close to how distinguished and complex human tools are. It is because, … Read more

Over the course of human evolution, our brains have developed in response to our needs to adapt to the environments and challenges we faced. It was not always as big as it is today, but rather started around the same size as our evolutionary cousins, modern chimpanzees and apes. Homo sapiens has only existed for … Read more

Have you ever looked at your dog and wondered how a species so different became so close to us? There was even a time millions of years ago, before hominins evolved to be higher up the food chain, when they were our ancestors’ predators together with big cats and other large carnivores. However, by the … Read more

For nearly the entirety of human existence, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers. A lifestyle that most hominin species adapted for millions of years, until about 10,000 years ago, when humans started farming. So, why did people stop hunting for food and start growing it instead in their lands? It was one of the biggest changes in … Read more

Have you ever wondered when humans first used fire, and how they came to know how to utilize it? Long ago, before we even had matches, lighters, and campfires, early humans had already learned how to use fire to their advantage. It could be even safe to say that without this skill, we might have … Read more

Have you ever walked and wondered why humans do it with two legs? Probably not, right? Because it has been the norm since we were all born, and some fossils even suggest that walking upright has been around for 7 million years. We may take it for granted now; however, this skill, bipedalism, is actually … Read more

Scientists believe that modern humans all lived in Africa before migrating to the rest of the world. If this is the environment where we evolved and thrived, then why did the early humans leave? Because around 50,000 to 70,000 years ago, fossils and DNA evidence suggest they finally ventured out of Africa after staying there … Read more

Humans are not the only species that can communicate at a high level. Primates like bonobos and chimpanzees can use sign language with their hands. Dolphins and whales communicate by sound patterns during echolocation and social interactions. Elephants use low-frequency rumbles that are inaudible to human ears. However, research shows that our communication style is … Read more