Keep up to date with our latest research
Our findings at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution are often world firsts.
Stay in the know with all that’s happening at ARCHE.
Latest news
DNA research could enable repatriation of ancient Aboriginal remains
20 Dec 2018
Advanced DNA technology to help return ancient remains to resting places.
New evidence of early humans in North Africa more than half a million years...
30 Nov 2018
Discovery indicates ancient humans occupied site more than half a million years earlier than...
Oldest known figurative cave art discovered in Borneo
08 Nov 2018
Cave paintings in Borneo among the world’s oldest examples of figurative depiction.
250,000 year-old teeth reveal unprecedented detail about ancient children
01 Nov 2018
250,000 year-old Neanderthal teeth reveal the oldest exposure to lead and the first natural weaning...
Upcoming centre events
Book launch of "The Tales Teeth Tell"
Wednesday 21 November 2018
A memorable evening with Associate Professor Tanya Smith to celebrate the worldwide launch of her new popular science book The Tales Teeth Tell: Development, Evolution and Behavior.
The Asia Pacific Conference on Human Evolution
June 2019
A three-day international conference hosted by the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution.
Media
Associate Professor Tanya Smith
The evolutionary tales teeth tell
Griffith University Associate Professor Tanya Smith says teeth have plenty of evolutionary tales to tell - when we grow our teeth they are like living fossils. From recording birth, to marking diet changes and teaching us about evolutionary behaviour, ancient teeth are a treasure trove into our past.
The Conversation articles
- Des traces de présence humaine de 2,4 millions d’années découvertes en Algérie, [In French], by M. Duval and M. Sahnouni (30/11/2018).
- Stone tools date early humans in North Africa to 2.4 million years ago, by M. Duval and M. Sahnouni (30/11/2018).
- Borneo cave discovery: is the world’s oldest rock art in Southeast Asia?, by A. Brumm et al. (08/11/2018)
- What teeth can tell about the lives and environments of ancient humans and Neanderthals, by T. Smith (1/11/2018)
- Humankind’s odyssey from Africa began more than two million years ago, by M. Langley (11/07/2018)
- South-East Queensland is droughtier and floodier than we thought, by J. Coates-Marnane et al. (21/06/2018)
- The Dreamtime, science and narratives of Indigenous Australia, by D. Lambert (03/05/2018)
- Rhino fossil rewrites the earliest human history of the Philippines, by A. Brumm (02/05/2018)
- Ancient stone tools found on Sulawesi, but who made them remains a mystery, by A. Brumm (11/04/2018)
- Un nouvel éclairage sur les premiers peuplements préhistoriques en Europe [In French], by M. Demuro et al. (04/03/2018)
- Giant handaxes suggest that different groups of early humans coexisted in ancient Europe, by M. Demuro et al. (23/02/2018)
- World’s scientists turn to Asia and Australia to rewrite human history, by M. Langley (07/12/2017)
- Mungo Man returns home: there is still much he can teach us about ancient Australia, by M. Westaway and A. Durband (14/11/2017)
- The lengthy childhood of endangered orangutans is written in their teeth, by T. M. Smith (17/05/2017)
- Ice age art and ‘jewellery’ found in an Indonesian cave reveal an ancient symbolic culture, by A. Brumm and M. Langley (03/04/2017)
- Aboriginal Australians co-existed with the megafauna for at least 17,000 years, by M. Westaway et al. (11/01/2017)
- DNA reveals a new history of the First Australians, by M. Westaway et al. (21/09/2016)
- A 700,000-year-old fossil find shows the Hobbits’ ancestors were even smaller, by G. van der Bergh and A. Brumm (08/06/2016)
- New DNA study confirms ancient Aborigines were the First Australians, by D. Lambert et al. (08/06/2016)
Further reading and listening
- El País - Un animal ensartado por una lanza es el primer dibujo figurativo de la humanidad [In Spanish] (07/11/2018).
- Science - Neanderthal children shivered and suffered in ancient Europe (31/10/2018).
- Nature Index - Movers and Shakers (19/09/2018): Griffith University named among the most improved institutions in the Nature Index between 2015 and 2017, with a special mention to the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution
- The Washington Post - Biological anthropologist’s book drills down into the scientific mysteries of our choppers (20/10/2018)
- Le Figaro - Le premier Européen, Homo antecessor, a au moins 800.000 ans [In French] (26/06/2018)
- ABC News - Oldest modern human fossil outside Africa discovered in Israel
- Nine News Queensland - A South-East scientist has played a critical role in re-writing the history of human evolution.
- Radio National - Fossilised finger bone found in Saudi Arabian desert sheds light on early human migration
- ABC Radio - The story of human evolution and migration
- Radio National - Fossilised finger bone found in Saudi Arabian desert sheds light on early human migration
- Radio National - New relatives on the human family tree
- El País - Los juguetes invisibles de la prehistoria [In Spanish] (22/03/2018)
- Sapiens.org - Humanity’s Story Has No End of Surprising Twists
- Courier Mail - Archaeologists reveal their dirty secrets
Publications
World-first genomic study of Aboriginal Australians
Some of the most ancient secrets of Australia’s human past have been uncovered in a new study involving Griffith University researchers, which has found Indigenous Australians and Papuans are descendants of a single wave of migrants who left Africa around 70,000 years ago.
New fossils shed light in the origin of 'Hobbits'
Griffith University researchers are part of an international team of scientists that has announced the discovery of ancestors of Homo floresiensis—the enigmatic species of pygmy-like humans discovered more than a decade ago on the Indonesian island of Flores.
First Peoples were truly first
ARCHE researchers have found evidence that demonstrates Aboriginal people were the first to inhabit Australia, as reported in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Science journal.
The work refutes an earlier study that claimed to recover DNA sequences from the oldest known Australian, Mungo Man.