Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

Researchers studying Pleistocene-era hominins piece together the origins and behavior of our closest evolutionary relatives—Neanderthals, Denisovans, and archaic *Homo sapiens*—using fossil remains, ancient DNA, and stone tool assemblages spanning roughly 2.5 million to 11,000 years ago. Ancient genomics has transformed the discipline, revealing that interbreeding between these groups was common and that traces of Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry persist in living humans today, with measurable effects on immune function and other traits. Central open questions include the timing and geography of modern human dispersals out of Africa, the cognitive and cultural capacities of archaic populations, and the degree to which human hunting pressure versus climatic shifts drove the mass extinctions of large mammals at the close of the Pleistocene. Advances in sediment ancient DNA, high-resolution dating, and the recovery of fossils from understudied regions—particularly Southeast Asia and Central Asia—are steadily reshaping long-held models of who our ancestors were and how they spread across the globe.

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Keywords

Hominin GeneticsPaleolithic ArchaeologyModern Human OriginsNeanderthal GenomeEarly Hominid FossilsPleistocene Extinctions