Hominins reached Asia at least 2.1 million years ago, researchers assert in an 11 July Nature paper. Stone tools they found in central China represent the earliest known evidence of humans or their ancient relatives living outside Africa. Image: Prof. Zhaoyu Zhu
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The origins of our species might need a rethink. An analysis of an ancient skull from China suggests it is eerily similar to the earliest known fossils of our species –found in Morocco, some 10,000 kilometres to the west. The skull hints that modern humans aren’t solely descended from African ancestors, as is generally thought. Image: Sheela Athreya
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Today’s Paleo diet cookbooks might be missing a few pages. Archaeological excavations at a Stone Age site in Israel have revealed the first direct evidence of the sort of plants that our distant human ancestors ate with their meat and fish. Their tastes were more adventurous than we might expect, with roasted acorns and sedges both on the menu. Image: DubeFranz
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This is the story of the discovery of a truly fantastic beast, the greatest of all great apes. According to some estimates, it stood 3.5 metres tall, weighed over 500 kilograms, and stalked the nightmares of the earliest humans to reach China. Its name? Gigantopithecus. Image: Craig Newsom
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Early in the 20th century most researchers believed we evolved in Eurasia rather than Africa. Surprisingly, they may have been partially correct. Recently, some prominent researchers have come round to the idea that hominins may have left their African cradle much earlier than we thought and undergone critical evolutionary transitions further north. Image: Cea.
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Homo floresiensis, the human hobbit, had a skull like that of a taller hominin called Homo erectus, suggesting to some that the hobbit was a dwarf species that evolved from this larger one. But the hobbit’s teeth and brain are smaller than expected of a dwarf – the world’s tiniest monkey could explain why. Image: San Diego Shooter
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Where did early humans bed down for the night? Evidence that some chimps routinely eschew the safety of treetops to sleep on the ground raises the possibility that some early hominins did too – and that could have implications for our forerunners’ cognitive development. Image: Martin Pettitt
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You could call it the original baptism of fire: the moment hominins first began controlling flames. There is now evidence that moment came at least 1 million years ago, a finding that will reignite the debate over whether human anatomy was changed forever by cooking. Image: M. Chazan
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