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 From BBC News,   By Pallab Ghosh-   Science correspondent, Edited by - Amal Udawatta, IMAGE SOURCE, PHILIPPE PSAILA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Image caption, Remains of a primitive human species known as Homo erectus have been found in Europe dating back to 1.4 million years ago. A big freeze previously unknown to science drove early humans from Europe for 200,000 years, but they adapted and returned, new research shows. Ocean sediments from 1.1 million years ago show temperatures suddenly dropped more than 5C, scientists say. They say our early ancestors couldn't have survived as they didn't have heating or warm clothes. Until now, the consensus had been that humans had existed in Europe continuously for 1.5 million years. Ancient humans' stone tools found in Kenya Ancient human remains found in County Armagh Ancient humans survived longer than we thought Evidence for the big freeze is found in sediments in the seabed off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal. Layers are deposited eac

  From BBC News Edited by Amal Udawatta, IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS Image caption, The excavation site in Nyayanga where hundreds of stone tools dating to roughly 2.9 million years ago were found Archaeologists in Kenya have dug up some of the oldest stone tools ever used by ancient humans, dating back around 2.9 million years. It is evidence that the tools were used by other branches of early humans, not just the ancestors of Homo Sapiens. The tools were used to butcher hippos and pound plant materials like tubers and fruit, the researchers said. Two big fossil teeth found at the site belong to an extinct human cousin, known as Paranthropus. Scientists had previously thought that Oldowan tools, a kind of simple stone implement, were only used by ancestors of Homo Sapiens, a grouping that includes our species and our closest relatives. However, no Homo Sapien fossils were found at the excavation site in Nyayanga on the Homa Peninsula in western Kenya. Instead, there were two teeth - stout m

  From BBC News, Edited by - Amal Udawatta, IMAGE SOURCE, EPA Image caption, The 2.9m (9.5ft) long "Green Coffin" belonged to an ancient Egyptian priest called Ankhenmaat A looted ancient Egyptian sarcophagus that was on display at a US museum has been returned to Egypt. The 2.9m (9.5ft) long "Green Coffin" dates back to the Late Dynastic Period, which spanned 664BC to 332BC, and belonged to a priest called Ankhenmaat. It was looted from the Abu Sir necropolis in north Egypt by a global art trafficking network , which smuggled it through Germany into the US in 2008. A collector loaned it to the Houston Museum of Natural Science in 2013. The sarcophagus was repatriated after an investigation that lasted several years and was formally handed over by US diplomats at a ceremony in Cairo on Monday. The event was attended by Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Tourism and Antiquities Minister Ahmed Issa. IMAGE SOURCE, EPA Image caption, Mostafa Waziri, the top

From  Smithsonian Magazine,     By- Rayan McRae and Briana Pobiner                        Edited by Amal Udawatta Smithsonian paleoanthropologists reveal the year’s most riveting findings about our close relatives and ancestors A team led by Laurits Skov and Benjamin Peter from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology sequenced nuclear, mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA of 13 Neanderthal individuals. From these sequences, they determined that two of the Neanderthals represent a father-daughter pair and that another two are cousins     Tom Björklund With many projects around the world proceeding despite the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers across a variety of fields made multiple exciting breakthroughs on human origins, gaining more insight into topics ranging from food and drink to interspecies cooperation. Telling us more about our food, our health, our close relatives and ancestors, and even our animal friends, these 14 new discoveries scientists made this year shed more