Direct Human Ancestor Homo Erectus is Older Than We Thought

"exec" writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The rolling hills northwest of Johannesburg are famous for fossils of human-like creatures called hominins. Because of this, the area is known as the Cradle of Humankind.

"During our field school excavations at Drimolen, a student began uncovering a cluster of fragments. We could see that they were parts of a skull. But they weren't immediately identifiable," says Ms Stephanie Baker.

[...] Fossils that are millions of years old often come out of the soil in fragments. The fragments need to be rebuilt before researchers can confidently identify what kind of animal they came from.

"Over the course of the field season, more and more fragments were uncovered. We began piecing them together. No one could decide what this skullcap was from, until one night it all came together-and we realized we were looking at a hominin," she says. They named the skullcap DNH 134.

The next question was-what kind of hominin? The Cradle of Humankind has several different species of human ancestors and the Drimolen site had at least two kinds.

"This find really challenged us. We compared the assembled skullcap to all of the other examples of hominins in the Cradle area. Eventually, its teardrop shape and relatively big brain cavity meant we were looking at Homo erectus," says Baker.

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