• The Brainy Branch

    Our species, Homo sapiens, are incredibly unique among the species on Earth today.

Ask An Anthropologist

Ask An Anthropologist is an educational resource for students, teachers, parents, and life-long learners. We encourage anyone interested in anthropology to make use of its content.

Becoming Human Logo

Powered by Becoming Human

Becoming human brings together interactive multimedia, research and scholarship to promote greater understanding of the course of human evolution.

Compare the size if primate brains in this activity!
The modern human brain is the largest and most complex of any living primate. As you will learn in this activity, it is also larger than the brains of our ancient human ancestors. What does brain size have to do with our biology?
DNA illustration

Your DNA is unique, and it makes you a human, not any other animal. Sequencing DNA lets us identify genetic similarities and differences that relate to species similarities and differences.

Photo of Darwin

In 1859, Charles Darwin published a book called On the Origin of Species that completely changed our understanding of how biodiversity arises.

epigenetics illustration
DNA controls all of your traits. Right? Well, kind of. The environment can actually control how your DNA works. Learn about how it does this through a series of switches known as epigenetic mechanisms.