Long before factories, mines, and cars filled the air with pollution, our distant ancestors were already living with a silent toxin: lead. A groundbreaking study reveals that hominids — from early ...

Dazzling new scientific techniques are allowing anthropologists to track the movements and menus of extinct hominids through the seasons and years as they ate their way across the African landscape, ...

Fossilized human teeth spanning two million years of evolution were studied for lead content, which was surprisingly high. To see the effect of lead on the human brain then and now, researchers ...

UC San Diego researchers have found high levels of lead in the teeth of both Neanderthals (left) and modern humans (right). However, a gene mutation may have protected modern human brains, allowing ...