About 4,600 years ago, in northern Germany, a small village buried 13 of its residents.  The deceased ranged in age from less than a year to nearly 60 years old and were buried in pairs or small groups. And virtually all of them had suffered violent, probably painful deaths.  Because the majority of the deceased [...]

Tags: Ancient DNA, burial rites, Germany, neolithic

The place of Neanderthals in the story of human evolution has been hotly debated for decades.  A distant cousin to our species, Neanderthals had already been in Europe over 250,000 years when Homo sapiens first arrived there 35,000 years ago.
Often called Cro-Magnoids, these first Europeans are believed by many scientists to have out-competed the Neanderthals, [...]

Tags: Ancient DNA, Cro-Magnoids, human origins, Neanderthals