The mystery of why ancient South American peoples who created the mysterious Nazca Lines also collected human heads as trophies has long puzzled scholars who theorize the heads may have been used in fertility rites, taken from enemies in battle or associated with ancestor veneration.

Epic voyage to discover the origins and migration routes of the ancestors of ancient Polynesians and their animals

It is widely known that birds learn to fly through practice, gradually refining their innate ability into a finely tuned skill. However, according to Dr Jim Stone from the University of Sheffield´s Department of Psychology, these skills may be easy to refine because of a genetically specified latent memory for flying.

Fossils discovered in the oft-painted arroyos of northern New Mexico show for the first time that dinosaurs and their non-dinosaur ancestors lived side by side for tens of millions of years, disproving the notion that dinosaurs rapidly replaced their supposedly outmoded predecessors.

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that humans' ability to walk upright developed from ancestors foraging for food in forest tree tops and not from walking on all fours on open land.

Modern man"s earliest known close ancestor was significantly more apelike than previously believed, a New York University College of Dentistry professor has found.