Michael Marshall

An ancient skull discovered in China may have just rewritten the story of human evolution

The origins of our species may lie much further back in time than we thought, and the same may be true of our extinct Neanderthal and Denisovan cousins

Steven Pinker’s new book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows makes a compelling case for common knowledge. Shame the politics muddies the waters

It’s long been thought that when the Roman Empire withdrew from Britain in the early 400s, the result was chaos and economic collapse. But a new archaeological discovery suggests that’s not the case.

An archaeological dig in northern England shows metal processing continued and even increased after the departure of the Romans

Did Neanderthals go extinct, at least in part, due to changes in Earth’s magnetic field? Did Australopithecus witness huge meteorite impacts?

Why did Christianity grow from a niche sect to a religion followed by billions? Michael Marshall explores Alice Roberts’s latest book Domination

Rearing our unusually underdeveloped young may account for the evolution of language. Michael Marshall is intrigued, but wants more evidence from Madeleine Beekman's The Origin of Language

It’s time to rethink how we study life’s origins. It emerged far earlier, and far quicker, than we once thought possible

Children seem to be less likely to be obese if they live at high altitude, which may be due to its effect on metabolism and appetite

An extinct group of humans that were once widespread in Asia don’t have an official species name – part of the reason is archaeological, and part is a legal question

People with chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, appear to have eight genetic signals that differ from those without the condition

For the more than 7 per cent of people over the age of 20 who don’t have any of their own teeth, the only option is artificial substitutes. But an era of regrowing living teeth may now be almost upon us

Long-held notions – such as the perceived lack of intelligence among hunter-gatherers or the causal link between agriculture and centralized power – are now being re-examined

Ancient humans in Africa changed their behaviour in a major way 70,000 years ago, which could explain how their descendants managed to people the rest of the world