The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology unites scientists with various backgrounds (natural sciences and humanities) whose aim is to investigate the history of humankind from an interdisciplinary perspective with the help of comparative analyses of genes, cultures, cognitive abilities, languages and social systems of past and present human populations as well as those of primates closely related to human beings.

• Department of Evolutionary Genetics
• Department of Human Evolution
• Department of Linguistics
• Department of Primatology
• Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology

• Max Planck Research Group for Comparative Cognitive Anthropology
• Max Planck Research Group on Plant Foods in Hominin Dietary Ecology

• The Cuvette Centrale as reservoir of medicinal plants
• Junior Research Group of Primate Kin Selection
• Evolutionary Roots Of Human Social Interaction

• The Leipzig School of Human Origins