Top Stories in Human Evolution of 2025

By Ryan McRae and Briana Pobiner

2025 has been quite the wild year! With more exciting stories in human evolution than we could count, it was a real competition to make the top stories list. While not every fun find was able to be included, we hope you enjoy the stories we pulled together for you. From new developments in ape cognition to an expanded perspective of a big-toothed hominin cousin, our relatives, living and extinct, got a lot of attention. A new view on a famous foot also tells more about a lesser known hominin species, Australopithecus deyiremeda. New tool and technology finds coupled with dietary studies showed us more than ever about the behavior of our ancestors, and ourselves, and new fossils give us a glimpse at the earliest Europeans, predating both our own species and the Neanderthals! Finally, we dive deeper into the blockbuster story of the year, looking at some of the biggest Denisovan studies which give us a clearer than ever picture of these enigmatic relatives. 

Through the evolutionary looking glass: chimps and bonobos are just like us 

We’re starting out our top stories with our ape cousins, and new studies that show we aren’t so different from them after all. First up, a study that investigated theory of mind, or the uniquely human trait of recognizing the cognitive sapience of others, which allows modern humans to communicate and coordinate to an extent not seen in other animals. Published in February, Luke Townrow and colleagues¹ set up an experiment where bonobos would receive a food reward hidden under cups, but only if they cooperated with their human partner and showed them where the food was first. Sometimes the bonobo could tell the human knew where the food was, and sometimes they could tell the human did not know where the food was. Bonobos pointed to the location of the hidden food more frequently and quicker when they knew the human was ignorant of the food’s location, indicating that they could interpret the human’s mental state and act accordingly, a hallmark of theory of mind. 

In addition to cooperating, an April study shows that apes also share – especially when it comes to fermented fruit. Anna Bowland and colleagues² documented the first recorded instance of fermented food sharing in chimpanzees, observed in Cantanhez National Park, Guinea-Bissau. At least seventeen chimps of all ages shared fermented breadfruits, ranging between 0.01% and 0.61% ABV. While this may not be enough ethanol to result in the sort of intoxication levels desired by many humans, this demonstrates that food sharing, and fermented food consumption, have deep evolutionary roots, supported by the evolution of ethanol metabolism among all African apes. 

On top of all that monkey business, an October study shows that chimps even have complex decision making processes. Hanna Schleihauf and colleagues³ presented chimps with two boxes, one of which contained food and one of which was empty or contained a non-food item. The chimps were allowed to choose a box twice, after receiving either weak or strong evidence about which box contains the food. The team found that chimps were able to revise their beliefs about the food’s location in response to more convincing evidence: when they picked the wrong box after the weak hint, they switched to the correct box after the following strong hint. Also, when they picked the correct box after a strong hint, they kept their selection after a weak hint. The study highlights the chimpanzees’ ability to make rational decisions, and even change decisions, in response to learning new information. How very human of them!

More than just big teeth and thick cheeks: a holistic picture of Paranthropus 

Besides learning more about our ape relatives, we also learned a lot more about some of our hominin cousins this year. Paranthropus is a genus of hominins consisting of three species, mostly known for their large teeth and massive chewing muscles that they likely used to break down tough plant fibers. However, not much was known about them outside of their mouths and skulls. The first Paranthropus story from April helps to close this gap, describing an articulated lower limb from Swartkrans, South Africa. Travis Pickering and colleagues⁴ described a partial pelvis, femur, and tibia of an adult Paranthropus robustus dating to 2.3 to 1.7 million years ago. The anatomy of the hip, femur, and knee indicate that this individual was fully bipedal, but the even more interesting thing is that having a full Paranthropus leg allows scientists to estimate their stature and body mass more accurately. This hominin would probably have been only 1.03 meters tall, one of the tiniest hominins on record and even smaller than the “hobbit”, Homo floresiensis, from Indonesia! Due to a lack of other fossil material for comparison and the pelvis fossil being very incomplete, estimating the sex of this individual is more difficult. 

However, another study from May pioneered the use of different methods to estimate sex of Paranthropus fossils. Analyzing proteins preserved in fossil tooth enamel, Palesa Madupe and colleagues⁵ were able to determine sex and begin to investigate genetic variability in Paranthropus fossils from South Africa. Using these proteins, the team was able to identify two male and two female individuals. This allows for more accurate hypotheses about sexual dimorphism (sex-based body size and shape differences). The team also found that one of the individuals appeared to be more distantly related, hinting at microevolution within this species. 

Lastly, published in October, a study describing a Paranthropus boisei hand from Koobi Fora, Kenya allowed scientists to answer the question: could Paranthropus have made stone tools? Published by Carrie Mongle and colleagues⁶, the nearly complete Paranthropus hand preserves wrist, hand, and finger bones and points to a mostly hominin-looking morphology. Yet with strong musculature and wide bones, the grasping capabilities of Paranthropus seem to converge with that of gorillas, although they likely used this powerful grip to strip vegetation and process food rather than for climbing. Additionally, with a long thumb and precision grasping capabilities, the authors hypothesize that there is nothing in their hand morphology preventing Paranthropus boisei from making and using stone tools. This builds on other recent finds (including additional finds from Koobi Fora, below) suggesting that the ability to make and use complex tools was not limited to the genus Homo like previously thought.

Famous foot finally finds fresh family

Speaking of fresh fossil finds, our bonus story for this year revisits a famous foot fossil from Ethiopia described in 2012. The Burtele foot, originally not given a species designation, dates to about 3.4 million years ago and despite being contemporaneous with Australopithecus afarensis, Lucy’s species, looked almost nothing like it. The locomotor adaptations were completely different and the foot still had an opposable big toe like modern apes and the earlier genus Ardipithecus. In November, Yohannes Haile-Selassie and colleagues⁷ published other fossils from the same site where the Burtele foot was found. A new mandible with teeth links the hominin fossils at Burtele to a less well known species, Australopithecus deyiremeda. This species had primitive teeth and grasping feet with isotopic evidence pointing to a diet consisting of the kinds of plants more similar to that of earlier species like Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus anamensis. These new finds show that primitive traits persisted more recently into the timeline of human evolution and that our family tree is even bushier than previously thought.  

Tool technologies in the ochre-light

Circling back to the tool conversation, we also have multiple stories exploring not just hand morphology, but the tools themselves! Archaeological sites, by definition, are evidence of past human behavior. But it’s not often a find is unearthed that turns out to be evidence of just one past human’s behavior. A study in August by Dominik Chlachula and colleagues⁸ reports on a small cluster of 29 stone artifacts from Milovice IV, Czech Republic, that were probably bundled together in a container of pouch made of perishable material: basically, a Stone Age hunter-gatherer’s personal toolkit. The ~30,000 year old blade and bladelet tools were made of a variety of kinds of stone (flint, radiolarite, chert, and opal); use-wear analysis showed they were used for cutting, scraping, and drilling, and also included projectiles used for hunting. 

Now to move farther back in time, to when some of the earliest members of our lineage were making tools. In November, David Braun and colleagues⁹ reported continuing stone toolmaking in the Turkana Basin of Kenya that started about 2.75 million years ago at the new site of Namorotukanan, which contains one of the oldest and longest intervals of the making of Oldowan tools. This simple core-and-flake technology was, as revealed by this new evidence, nevertheless undertaken with enough skill – and the tools useful enough for various activities – to be made consistently for almost 300,000 years, through dramatic environmental changes, highlighting our ancestors’ resilience. 

However, not all ancient tools were made for practical purposes. Zooming later in time again, in October, Francesco d’Errico and colleagues¹⁰ described three pieces of ochre, an iron-rich mineral pigment, from archaeological sites in Crimea, Ukraine. These artifacts were deliberately collected, shaped, engraved, polished, resharpened, and deposited there by Neanderthals up to 70,000 years ago. Although it’s impossible to know what the Neanderthals did with these yellow and red pigments, the fact that they seemed to be kept sharpened suggests that their tips were used to produce linear marks. This suggests they had a symbolic or artistic rather than a utilitarian function – perhaps playing a role in identity expression, communication, and transmitting knowledge across generations. 

Fat, maggots, and maybe a few vegetables: the REAL paleodiet? 

When they weren’t busy coloring with paleo-crayons, our Neanderthal cousins are known for being skilled hunters of large animals, and two studies in July shed new light on their diets. First, Lutz Kindler and colleagues¹¹ documented that 125,000 years ago, at the site of Neumark-Nord in Germany, Neanderthals processed at least 172 animals at the edge of a lake – most likely to extract bone grease. This “fat factory”, as they called it, is much older than previously documented grease extraction sites, and this extreme bone-bashing behavior had not been seen before at Neanderthal sites. The team documented how Neanderthals transported the bones of these animals – mostly antelope, deer, and horses, but even some forest elephants, to the site to crush and chop them up to boil them to get at the nutritious, calorie rich fat inside. (Speaking of Neanderthals cooking things, a December study by Rob Davis, Nick Ashton and colleagues¹² documented the earliest evidence of deliberate fire-making from the 400,000-year-old site of Barnham, UK, where they found heated sediments, fire-cracked flint handaxes, and fragments of iron pyrite – a mineral used to strike sparks with flint – likely brought to the site from far away.)   

Later in July, Melanie Beasley and colleagues¹³ proposed an intriguing solution to this puzzle: humans and our earlier relatives can only eat a certain proportion of protein in our diets without getting protein poisoning, but chemical signatures (specifically, nitrogen isotope values) in Neanderthal bones indicate that they ate as much protein as other ancient hyper-carnivores. So, what was causing this conundrum? Maybe it was maggots! Maggots are fat-rich fly larvae, and when an animal dies, they feed on the decaying flesh – which has higher nitrogen values as it decomposes. Many indigenous forager groups regard putrid meat as a tasty treat. If Neanderthals were eating nitrogen-enriched maggots feeding on rotting muscle tissue in dried, frozen, or cached (deliberately stored) dead animals, that might at least partly explain their unusually high nitrogen values. Maggot snacks, anyone?  

While our later evolutionary cousins may have munched on maggots, a study in January by Tina Lüdecke and colleagues¹⁴ looked at carbon and nitrogen isotopes in the teeth of Australopithecus and other animal species dating to around 3.7-3.3 million years ago from Sterkfontein, South Africa. The isotope ratios of the seven Australopithecus teeth were variable but consistently low, and more similar to the contemporaneous herbivores than the carnivores, suggesting they were not consuming much meat. This follows with other recent studies suggesting, contrary to common belief, that carnivory was not a major factor shaping our evolution.

Eurovision 1.95 million BCE: the earliest Europeans predate humans and Neanderthals

Further north and later in time: two studies this year focused on very early evidence for hominins in Europe. In January, Sabrina Curran and colleagues¹⁵ reported cut marks on several animal bones from Grăunceanu, Romania, dating to at least 1.95 million years ago –  now among the earliest evidence that hominins had spread to Eurasia by this time. To verify that these were cut marks made by stone tools, they compared 3D shape data from impressions of the marks to a reference set of almost 900 modern marks made by stone tool butchery, carnivore feeding, and sedimentary abrasion. They concluded that the marks on 8 Grăunceanu fossils, mainly hoofed animals like deer, were indeed high-confidence stone tool cut marks. 

In March, Rosa Huguet and colleagues¹⁶ reported the earliest hominin face fossil from western Europe, dated to 1.4-1.1 million years ago, from Sima del Elefante (Sierra de Atapuerca), Spain. The shape of the left half of this face fossil is more similar to Homo erectus (which has not before been documented in Europe), rather than resembling later and more modern looking Homo antecessor fossils found at the Gran Dolina site about 300 meters away, also in the Sierra de Atapuerca, and dated to between 900,000-800,000 years ago. The scientific name of the new fossil is ATE7-1, but its nickname is “Pink”. This is a nod to Pink Floyd’s album the Dark Side of the Moon, which translates into Spanish as ‘La cara oculta de la luna’ – and ‘cara oculta’ means ‘hidden face’. But also, the first name of the coordinator of the research at Sima del Elefante and lead author of the study, Rosa, is Spanish for ‘pink’. (We see what you did there… and we like it.) 

A hot new bombshell enters the family tree: Denisovans get a scientific name

Finally, we saved perhaps the biggest story of the year for last. While not known from Europe like the previous finds, Denisovan fossils have been found in Siberia and throughout east Asia, although they are very few and far between. Indeed, Denisovans may be our most enigmatic cousins – because we’ve learned more about them through DNA (including DNA we got from interbreeding with them!) than we know from their fossils. Until this year, that is. The first Denisovan story from April described a new Denisovan mandible. Takumi Tsutaya and colleagues¹⁷ analyzed the Penghu 1 mandible, dredged up from the coast of Taiwan, and discovered that the morphology and protein sequences both matched it with Denisovans. Proteomics also allowed the team to determine this was a male individual, and this find expands the known range of Denisovans into warmer, wetter regions of southeast Asia. 

Next, two stories from this summer took a second look at the Harbin cranium, termed ‘Dragon Man,’ and given the species name Homo longi in 2021. The first study in June¹⁸ looked at the proteome of the Harbin cranium, while the second study in July¹⁹ looked at the mitochondrial DNA; both studies were led by Qiaomei Fu and colleagues. While no DNA was able to be retrieved from the fossil itself, proteomics and the DNA from dental calculus both suggested that this fossil was part of the Denisovan group. Together, these studies give the first look at the face of a Denisovan, lining up morphology with molecules, and give Denisovans the scientific name Homo longi. While more work needs to be done to build the body of evidence and give scientists a more complete view of Denisovan anatomy, habitat, and behavior, being able to link complete fossils with the molecular evidence is a huge step forward. While it is unclear what this means for the name ‘Denisovan’ itself, we hypothesize that it will persist as a popular or common name, much like how we call Homo neanderthalensis ‘Neanderthals’ today. 

Last, but certainly not least, in September Xiaobo Feng and colleagues²⁰ reconstructed and described the Yunxian 2 cranium from China, dating to one million years ago. The skull was meticulously reconstructed from crushed and warped fragments and appears to have a mix of primitive and derived traits, and is also closely aligned with the Homo longi group. The phylogenetic analysis conducted by the team changes the perspective of late hominin divergence, with Homo longi and Homo sapiens being sister taxa to the exclusion of Neanderthals, and all three groups having evolutionary origins two to three times older than previously thought: at least 1.2 million years ago. While more finds will support or refute these phylogenetic claims, it is clear that new fossil evidence continues to help refine our understanding of our lineage – and never stops providing us with fun surprises! 

---

¹Townrow, L.A., Krupenye, C. (2025). Bonobos point more for ignorant than knowledgeable social partners. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(6), e2412450122. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2412450122

²Bowland, A.C., Bersacola, E., Ramon, M., Bessa, J., Melin, A.D., Carrigan, M.A., Harrison, X.A.,  Hockings, K.J. (2025). Wild chimpanzees share fermented fruits. Current Biology, 35(8), R279-R280. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)00281-7

³Schleihauf, H., Sanford, E.M., Thompson, B.D., Zhang, S., Rukundo, J., Call, J., Herrmann, E., Engelmann, J.M. (2025). Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs. Science, 390(6772), 521-526. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq5229

⁴Pickering, T.R., Cazenave, M., Clarke, R.J., Heile, A.J., Caruana, M.V., Kuman, K., Stratford, D., Brain, C.K., Heaton, J.L. (2025). First articulating os coxae, femur, and tibia of a small adult Paranthropus robustus from Member 1 (Hanging Remnant) of the Swartkrans Formation, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution, 201, 103647. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248424001556#tbl10

⁵Madupe, P.P., Koenig, C., Patramanis, I., Rüther, P.L., Hlazo, N., Mackie, M., Tawane, M., Krueger, J., Taurozzi, A.J., Troché, G., Kibii, J., Pickering, R., Dickinson, M.R., Sahle, Y., Kgotleng, D., Musiba, C., Manthi, F., Bell, L., DuPlessis, M., Gilbert, C., Zipfel, B., Kuderna, L.F.K., Lizano, E., Welker, F., Kyriakidou, P., Cox, J., Mollereau, M., Tokarski, C., Blackburn, J., Ramos-Madrigal, J., Marques-Bonet, T., Penkman, K., Zanolli, C., Schroeder, L., Racimo, F., Olsen, J.V., Ackermann, R.R., Cappellini, E. (2025). Enamel proteins reveal biological sex and genetic variability in southern African Paranthropus. Science, 388(6750), 969-973. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt9539

⁶Mongle, C.S., Orr, C.M., Tocheri, M.W., Prang, T.C., Grine, F.E., Feibel, C., Patel, B.A., Laureijs, O., Hobbs, T.E., Maiolino, S., Rossie, J., Mbogo, W., Du Plessis, A., Lonyericho, J., Woto Huka, W., Sale, H., Umuro, A., Yirgudo, P., Dalacha, I., Kirinya, M., Linga, E., Loki, R., Longaye, A., Lonyericho, E., Loyapan, I., Nakudo, N., Nyete, C., Leakey, M.G., Leakey, L.N. (2025). New fossils reveal the hand of Paranthropus boisei. Nature, 1-8. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09594-8

⁷Haile-Selassie, Y., Schwartz, G.T., Prang, T.C., Saylor, B.Z., Deino, A., Gibert, L., Ragni, A., Levin, N.E. (2025). New finds shed light on diet and locomotion in Australopithecus deyiremeda. Nature, 1-9. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09714-4

⁸Chlachula, D., Marko, A.M., Moník, M., Cristiani, E., Gregar, F., Hamrozi, P., Marko, J., Novotný, J., Pluháček, T., Zupancich, A., Novák, M. (2025). Tracking the Hunter: A Study of the Personal Gear of a Gravettian Hunter-Gatherer from Milovice IV. Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology, 8(1), 1-21. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41982-025-00228-z

⁹Braun, D.R., Palcu Rolier, D.V., Advokaat, E.L., Archer, W., Baraki, N.G., Biernat, M.D., Beaudoin, E. Behrensmeyer, A.K., Bobe, R., Elmes, K., Forrest, F., Hammond, A.S., Jovane, L., Kinyanjui, R.N., de Martini, A.P., Mason, P.R.D., McGrosky, A., Munga, J., Ndiema, E.K., Patterson, D.B., Reeves, J.S., Roman, D.C., Sier, M.J., Srivastava, P., Tuosto, K., Uno, K.T., Villaseñor, A., Wynn, J.G., Harris, J.W.K.,  Carvalho, S. (2025). Early Oldowan technology thrived during Pliocene environmental change in the Turkana Basin, Kenya. Nature communications, 16(1), 9401. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64244-x

¹⁰d’Errico, F., Mauran, G., Pitarch Martí, A., Majkić, A., Stepanchuk, V. (2025). Evidence for symbolic use of ochre by Micoquian Neanderthals in Crimea. Science Advances, 11(44), eadx4722. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx4722

¹¹Kindler, L., Gaudzinski-Windheuser, S., Scherjon, F., Garcia-Moreno, A., Smith, G.M., Pop, E., Speth, J.D., Roebroeks, W. (2025). Large-scale processing of within-bone nutrients by Neanderthals, 125,000 years ago. Science Advances, 11(27), eadv1257. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257

¹²Davis, R., Hatch, M., Hoare, S., Lewis, S.H., Lucas, C., Parfitt, S.A., Bello, S.M., Lewis, M., Mansfield, J., Najorka, J., O’Connor, S., Peglar, S., Sorensen, A., Stringer, C., Ashton, N. (2025). Earliest evidence of making fire. Nature  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09855-6

¹³Beasley, M.M., Lesnik, J.J., Speth, J.D. (2025). Neanderthals, hypercarnivores, and maggots: Insights from stable nitrogen isotopes. Science Advances, 11(30), eadt7466. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adt7466

¹⁴Lüdecke, T., Leichliter, J.N., Stratford, D., Sigman, D.M., Vonhof, H., Haug, G.H., Bamford, M.K., Martínez-García, A. (2025). Australopithecus at Sterkfontein did not consume substantial mammalian meat. Science, 387(6731), 309-314. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq7315

¹⁵Curran, S.C., Drăgușin, V., Pobiner, B., Pante, M., Hellstrom, J., Woodhead, J., Croitor, R., Doboș, A., Gogol, S.E., Ersek, V., Keevil, T.L., Petculescu, A., Popescu, A., Robinson, C. Werdelin, L., Terhune, C.E. (2025). Hominin presence in Eurasia by at least 1.95 million years ago. Nature Communications, 16(1), 836. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56154-9

¹⁶Huguet, R., Rodríguez-Álvarez, X.P., Martinón-Torres, M., Vallverdú, J., López-García, J.M., Lozano, M., Terradillos-Bernal, M., Expósito, I., Ollé, A., Santos, E., Saladié, P., de Lombera-Hermida, A., Moreno-Ribas, E.,Martín-Francés, E.,  Allué, E., Núñez-Lahuerta, C., van der Made, M., Galán, J., Blain, H., Cáceres, I., Rodríguez-Hidalgo, A., Bargalló, A., Mosquera, M., Parés, J.P., Marín, J., Pineda, A., Lordkipanidze, D., Margveslashvili, A., Arsuaga, J.L., Carbonell, E., Bermúdez de Castro, J.M. (2025). The earliest human face of Western Europe. Nature, 1-7. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08681-0

¹⁷Tsutaya, T., Sawafuji, R., Taurozzi, A.J., Fagernäs, Z., Patramanis, I., Troché, G., Mackie, M., Gakuhari, T., Oota, H., Tsai, C. Olsen, J.V., Kaifu, Y, Chang, C., Cappellini, E., Welker, F. (2025). A male Denisovan mandible from Pleistocene Taiwan. Science, 388(6743), 176-180. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads3888

¹⁸Fu, Q., Bai, F., Rao, H., Chen, S., Ji, Y., Liu, A., Ji, Q. (2025). The proteome of the late Middle Pleistocene Harbin individual. Science, eadu9677. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu9677

¹⁹Fu, Q., Cao, P., Dai, Q., Bennett, E.A., Feng, X., Yang, M.A., Ping, W., Pääbo, S., Ji, Q. (2025). Denisovan mitochondrial DNA from dental calculus of the> 146,000-year-old Harbin cranium. Cell. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674%2825%2900627-0?utm_campaign=Press%20Package&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8gEkg-D9WDfbYNV2DMJ52JTzxrRDOdidnjSSUO6YfjudDJqdJXujm3oaZ3NxTaW3MBZjgfCLJmLs-mpdsHRm91iIT4AA&_hsmi=366496950&utm_content=366496950&utm_source=hs_email

²⁰Feng, X., Yin, Q., Gao, F., Lu, D., Fang, Q., Feng, Y., Huang, X., Tan, C., Zhou, H., Li, Q., Zhang, C., Stringer, C., Ni, X. (2025). The phylogenetic position of the Yunxian cranium elucidates the origin of Homo longi and the Denisovans. Science, 389(6767), 1320-1324. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado9202