"their food as early as 500,000 years ago. Re-analysis of burnt bone fragments and plant ashes from the Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa, has been dubbed evidence supporting human control of fire there by 1 M.Y.A. There is archaeological evidence that ""Homo erectus"" cooked their food. It has previously been thought that engraving is indicative of modern cognition and behavior. In the Dubois collection discovered by Eugène Dubois in 1891, a shell with a geometric engraving was found. The engraving of the shell was dated back to a maximum age of 0.5460 ± .10 million years and a minimum age of"
"naledi"". It has been described as one of the most important paleontological discoveries in modern times. The descendants of the Middle Paleolithic populations are thought to be the aboriginal San and Khoikhoi tribes. The settlement of southern Africa by the ancestors of the Khoisan corresponds to the earliest separation of the extant ""Homo sapiens"" populations altogether, associated in genetic science with what is described in scientific terms as matrilinear haplogroup L0 (mtDNA) and patrilinear haplogroup A (Y-DNA), originating in a northwestern area of southern Africa. The San and Khoikhoi are grouped under the term Khoisan, and are essentially distinguished only"
"of humans and the Hominidae clade (great apes), as evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors as well as later ones that have been dated to around 7 million years ago, including ""Sahelanthropus tchadensis"", ""Australopithecus africanus"", ""A. afarensis"", ""Homo erectus"", ""H. habilis"" and ""H. ergaster""—the earliest ""Homo sapiens"" (modern human), found in Ethiopia, date to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas; it is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Africa hosts a large diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. In the late"
"National Geographic Society has videos on its website describing, explaining and showing different phases of the discovery, the scientists, the six women excavators able to access the chamber (the ""Underground Astronauts""), excavation of the fossils during a two-year period, and the process of making a model of a head of ""H. naledi"" from the fossils. Lee Berger introduces ""Homo naledi"" in a Wits University video. Homo naledi Homo naledi is an extinct species of hominin, which anthropologists first described in September 2015 and have assigned to the genus ""Homo"". In 2013, fossil skeletons were found in the Gauteng province of"
"Makapansgat in Limpopo Province, Cornelia and Florisbad in the Free State Province, Border Cave in KwaZulu-Natal Province, Klasies River Mouth in Eastern Cape Province and Pinnacle Point, Elandsfontein and Die Kelders Cave in Western Cape Province. These finds suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa from about three million years ago, starting with ""Australopithecus africanus"". There followed species including ""Australopithecus sediba"", ""Homo ergaster"", ""Homo erectus"", ""Homo rhodesiensis"", ""Homo helmei"", ""Homo naledi"" and modern humans (""Homo sapiens""). Modern humans have inhabited Southern Africa for at least 170,000 years. Various researchers have located pebble tools within the Vaal River valley."
"primary hominid ever to live outside Africa, many scientists consider ""H. georgicus"" to be an early and primitive member of the ""H. erectus"" species. The fossil record shows ""Homo sapiens"" living in Southern and Eastern Africa at least 200,000 to 150,000 years ago. Around 40,000 years ago, the species' expansion out of Africa launched the colonization of the planet by modern human beings. By 10,000 BC, ""Homo sapiens"" had spread to most corners of Afro-Eurasia. Their disperals are traced by linguistic, cultural and genetic evidence. The earliest physical evidence of astronomical activity appears to be a lunar calendar found on"
"appeared soon after this, penetrating as far south as Zambia. African archaeology Africa has the longest record of human habitation in the world. The first hominins emerged 6-7 million years ago, and among the earliest anatomically modern human skulls found so far were discovered at Omo Kibish. European archaeology, as well as that of North Africa, is generally divided into the Stone Age (comprising the Lower Paleolithic, the Middle Paleolithic, the Upper Paleolithic, the Mesolithic, and the Neolithic), the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. For Africa south of the Sahara, African archaeology is classified in a slightly different way,"
"African archaeology Africa has the longest record of human habitation in the world. The first hominins emerged 6-7 million years ago, and among the earliest anatomically modern human skulls found so far were discovered at Omo Kibish. European archaeology, as well as that of North Africa, is generally divided into the Stone Age (comprising the Lower Paleolithic, the Middle Paleolithic, the Upper Paleolithic, the Mesolithic, and the Neolithic), the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. For Africa south of the Sahara, African archaeology is classified in a slightly different way, with the Paleolithic generally divided into the Early Stone Age,"
"not with the chimpanzees (""Pan""). This would call into question the prevailing belief that pre-human hominids originated in Africa, though others are sceptical of the claims. The species was found to be some two hundred thousand years older than the oldest African hominid, Sahelanthropus tchadensis which was found in Chad. Researchers who conducted the study said: ""We were surprised by our results, as pre-humans were previously known only from sub-Saharan Africa,"". Professor David Begun, a University of Toronto paleoanthropologist and co-author of this study, added: ""This dating allows us to move the human-chimpanzee split into the Mediterranean area."" On the"
"Dawn of Humanity Dawn of Humanity is a 2015 American documentary film that was released online on September 10, 2015, and aired nationwide in the United States on September 16, 2015. The PBS NOVA National Geographic film, in one episode of two hours, was directed and produced by Graham Townsley. The film describes the 2013 discovery, and later excavation, of the fossil remains of ""Homo naledi"", an extinct species of hominin assigned to the genus ""Homo"", found within the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star Cave system, located in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. Additionally, the National Geographic Society"
"Kenya and Tanzania. The discovery was made by Gerrard Dekker, a Dutch hydrologist, who found Acheulian stone tools that were over a million years old at Kella. Since then many important finds have propelled Ethiopia to the forefront of palaeontology. The oldest hominid discovered to date in Ethiopia is the 4.2 million year old ""Ardipithicus ramidus"" (Ardi) found by Tim D. White in 1994. The most well known hominid discovery is Lucy, found in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar region in 1974 by Donald Johanson, and is one of the most complete and best preserved, adult Australopithecine fossils ever"
"ergaster""-specimens, and 900–1100 in later specimens). Remains have been found in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa. ""H. erectus/ergaster"" (""H. erectus"" sensu lato) is the predecessor of ""Homo heidelbergensis"" (in Africa also known as ""Homo rhodesiensis""), which arose after about 0.8 million years ago. Late populations of morphological ""H. erectus"" were mostly replaced by ""H. heidelbergensis"" by 0.5 million years ago. ""Homo neanderthalensis"" and ""Homo sapiens"" are in turn derived from ""H. heidelbergensis"" at about 0.3 million years ago. There are broad divisions in the scientific community re interpreting the development of the earliest species of genus ""Homo"". ""H. habilis"""
"was also found that Neanderthals were less genetically diverse than modern humans are, which indicates that ""Homo neanderthalensis"" grew from a group composed of relatively few individuals. DNA sequences suggest that ""Homo sapiens"" first appeared between about 130,000 and 250,000 years ago in Africa. Paleogenetics opens up many new possibilities for the study of hominid evolution and dispersion. By analyzing the genomes of hominid remains, their lineage can be traced back to from where they came, or from where they share a common ancestor. The Denisova hominid, a species of hominid found in Siberia from which DNA was able to"
"the earliest settlement of homo sapiens in North Africa to around 160,000 years ago According to some sources, North Africa was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic flake-tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 130,000 BCE, are called Aterian(after the site Bir el Ater, south of Annaba) and are marked by a high standard of workmanship, great variety, and specialization. Humans in North Africa (Nazlet Sabaha, Egypt) are known to have dabbled in chert mining, as early as ~100,000 years ago, likely for use as tools. The earliest blade industries in North Africa belong"
"hominid. ""This latest discovery of prehistoric tools and remains of hominids provides additional proof to the theory that the Great Rift Valley of Africa and perhaps the excavation site near Karonga can be considered the cradle of humankind."" Schrenk said. The site also contains some of the earliest dinosaurs which lived between 100 million and 140 million years ago and early hominids believed to have lived between a million and 6 million years ago. The discovery was at Malema excavation site from Karonga. In terms of more recent prehistory, Karonga has an abundance of Pleistocene and Holocene archaeological materials dating"
"the next 1.5 million years spread throughout Africa and Eurasia. Europe is reached by about 0.5 Mya by ""Homo heidelbergensis"". ""Homo neanderthalensis"" and ""Homo sapiens"" develop after about 300 kya. ""Homo naledi"" is present in Southern Africa by 300 kya. ""H. sapiens"" soon after its first emergence spread throughout Africa, and to Western Asia in several waves, possibly as early as 250 kya, and certainly by 130 kya. Most notable is the Southern Dispersal of ""H. sapiens"" around 60 kya, which led to the lasting peopling of Oceania and Eurasia by anatomically modern humans. ""H. sapiens"" interbred with archaic humans"
"Africa and is thought to be the first hominid to hunt in coordinated groups, use complex tools, and care for infirm or weaker companions. ""Homo antecessor"" the earliest hominid in Northern Europe lived from 1.2 million to 800,000 years ago and used stone tools. ""Homo heidelbergensis"" lived between 600,000 and 400,000 years ago and used stone tool technology similar the Acheulean tools used by ""Homo erectus"". European and Asian sites dating back 1.5 million years ago seem to indicate controlled use of fire by ""Homo erectus"". A northern Israel site from about 690,000 to 790,000 years ago suggests that man"
"is found in the San people of Southern Africa, estimated at close to 130,000 years. The Latin noun ""homō"" (genitive ""hominis"") means ""human being"" or ""man"" in the generic sense of ""human being, mankind"". The binomial name ""Homo sapiens"" was coined by Carl Linnaeus (1758). Names for other species of the genus were introduced beginning in the second half of the 19th century (""H. neanderthalensis"" 1864, ""H. erectus"" 1892). Even today, the genus ""Homo"" has not been properly defined. Since the early human fossil record began to slowly emerge from the earth, the boundaries and definitions of the genus ""Homo"""
"often based on prior finds, DNA work, and a better understanding of where such remains might exist. Curnoe instead proposes that ""Australopithecus garhi"", found in Ethiopia and dating to about 2.5 million years ago, is a better explanation for the earliest non-""Homo"" direct ancestor in the human evolutionary line. Bones even older than those of ""Homo gautengensis"" await study and classification. According to Colin Groves, a professor in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, ""Here were a number of distinctive, perhaps short-lived, species of proto-humans living in both eastern and southern Africa in"
"""Homo sapiens"" and ""Homo neanderthalensis"" in southern Africa and Europe respectively, and to explore whether and how environmental variability influenced this development between 180,000 – 25,000 years ago, primarily by combining archaeological results, original multi‐proxy palaeoenvironmental data and climatic simulations for two continents. From 2017 the cave site continues to be excavated by many of the same researchers under the newly funded Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour(SapienCE) at the University of Bergen, Norway. The Centre is formed in cooperation with Witwatersrand University, Royal Holloway University of Londn, Université de Bordeaux, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and UNI research, Bergen, Norway. The"
"Africa, dates to close to 2 million years ago. A 2018 study claims human presence at Shangchen, central China, as early as 2.12 Ma based on magnetostratigraphic dating of the lowest layer containing stone artefacts. The oldest known human skeletal remains outside of Africa are from Dmanisi, Georgia (Dmanisi skull 4), and are dated to 1.8 Ma. These remains are classified as ""Homo erectus georgicus"". Later waves of expansion are proposed around 1.4 Ma (early Acheulean industries), associated with ""Homo antecessor"" and 0.8 Ma (cleaver-producing Acheulean groups, associated with ""Homo heidelbergensis"". Until the early 1980s, early humans were thought to"
"more than 1.8 million years ago, and by 1.5 million years ago had spread throughout Europe and Asia. Virtually all physical anthropologists agree that ""Archaic Homo sapiens"" (A group including the possible species ""H. heidelbergensis"", ""H. rhodesiensis"" and ""H. neanderthalensis"") evolved out of African ""Homo erectus"" (""sensu lato"") or ""Homo ergaster."" Anthropologists support the idea that anatomically modern humans (""Homo sapiens"") evolved in North or East Africa from an archaic human species such as ""H. heidelbergensis"" and then migrated out of Africa, mixing with and replacing ""H. heidelbergensis"" and ""H. neanderthalensis"" populations throughout Europe and Asia, and ""H. rhodesiensis"" populations"
"fossil record in Africa. From ""Homo ergaster"", ""Homo erectus"" evolved 1.5 million years ago. Some of the earlier representatives of this species were still fairly small-brained and used primitive stone tools, much like ""H. habilis"". The brain later grew in size, and ""H. erectus"" eventually developed a more complex stone tool technology called the Acheulean. Possibly the first hunters, ""H. erectus"" mastered the art of making fire and was the first hominid to leave Africa, colonizing most of Afro-Eurasia and perhaps later giving rise to ""Homo floresiensis"". Although some recent writers have suggested that ""Homo georgicus"" was the first and"
"can be observed at the site of Laetoli in Tanzania. This site contains hominid footprints that are remarkably similar to those of modern humans and have been dated to as old as 3.6 million years. The footprints have generally been classified as australopith is the only form of prehuman known to have existed in that region at that time. ""Australopithecus anamensis"", ""A. afarensis"", and ""A. africanus"" are among the most famous of the extinct hominins. ""A. africanus"" was once considered to be ancestral to the genus ""Homo"" (in particular ""Homo erectus""). However, fossils assigned to the genus ""Homo"" have been"
"focus of his research is on the origin of modern humans in Africa, specifically North Africa, where he has been conducting fieldwork for several years. In particular, at the site of Jebel Irhoud (Morocco), he has discovered important new fossil hominins, which document the emergence of our species more than 300,000 years ago and reveal that early Homo sapiens were not only represented in sub-Saharan Africa. Hublin's demonstration that modern behaviors were present in the very last Neandertals was a major contribution to the field. His work on Late Neandertal sites, such as those of Saint-Césaire and Arcy-sur-Cure (France), provided"
"continent for the whole of the Early Pleistocene (until about 0.8 mya), migrating out only during a phase named Out of Africa I. The Dmanisi archeological site is the earliest hominin site out of Africa and the five skulls showed that some hominins, chiefly the ""Homo erectus georgicus"" had left Africa as far back as 1.85 million years ago. All five skulls are roughly the same age. The five Dmanisi skulls are named: Dmanisi skull 4 The Dmanisi skull 4, also known as D3444 with its mandible D3900, is one of five ""Homo erectus"" skulls discovered in Dmanisi, Georgia. Described"
"from a series of caves near Krugersdorp and Mokopane in South Africa. The cave sites of Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai B, Drimolen, Malapa, Cooper's D, Gladysvale, Gondolin and Makapansgat have yielded a range of early human species dating back to between three and one million years ago, including ""Australopithecus africanus"", ""7Australopithecus sediba"" and ""Paranthropus robustus"". However, it is not generally thought that these early humans were living in the caves, but that they were brought into the caves by carnivores that had killed them. The first early hominid ever found in Africa, the Taung Child in 1924, was also thought for"
"visiting the waterhole together. In South Africa, two ancient trackways have been found containing footprints, one at Langebaan and one at Nahoon. Both trackways occur in calcareous eolianites or hardened sand dunes. At Nahoon, trackways of at least five species of vertebrates, including three hominid footprints, are preserved as casts. The prints at Langebaan are the oldest human footprints, dated to approximately 117,000 years old. Twenty six human fossil trackways have been found in the in the Willandra Lakes area adjacent to Lake Garnpung, consisting of 563 human footprints from 19,000 to 20,000 years ago. The earliest land creatures (actually"
"the University of the Witwatersrand, who proposed the bones represent a new ""Homo"" species. Other experts contend more analyses are needed to support this classification. There are some indications that the individuals may have been placed in the cave near the time of their death. The word """"naledi"""" means ""star"" in the Sotho-Tswana languages. It, and the corresponding name ""Dinaledi"" Chamber (""chamber of stars""), were chosen to reference the Rising Star cave system where the fossils were found. On 13 September 2013, while exploring the Rising Star cave system looking for an extension, recreational cavers Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker"
"of these hominins did not adapt quite as fast. This caused the hominin species to be quite primitive. African hunter-gatherers hunted larger mammals and relied on an assortment of edible plants, both in the grasslands that are now the Sahara desert, and the rain forests of Central Africa. Coastal peoples also subsisted on seafood and numerous middens indicate their diet. ""Homo sapiens"" appear for the first time in the archaeological record around 200,000 BCE in Africa. They soon developed a more advanced method of flint tool manufacture involving striking flakes from a prepared core. This permitted more control over the"
"name ""Tchadanthropus uxoris"" for what he considered the earliest fossil human discovered in north Africa. Although once considered to be a specimen of ""H. habilis"", ""T. uxoris"" has been subsumed into ""H. erectus"" but it is no longer considered a valid taxon. It was reported that the fossil ""had been so eroded by wind-blown sand that it mimicked the appearance of an australopith, a primitive type of ""hominid"""". It is probably only 10,000 years old according to stratigraphy, paleontology and C14 dating presented in Michel Servant's PhD as early as 1973. Homo erectus georgicus is the subspecies name assigned to"
"that of the tools at roughly 280,000 to 350,000 years old. If they hold up, these dates would make the remains by far the earliest known examples of ""Homo sapiens"". This suggests that, rather than arising in East Africa around 200,000 years ago, modern humans may already have been present across the length of Africa 100,000 years earlier. According to study author Jean-Jacques Hublin, ""The idea is that early ""Homo sapiens"" dispersed around the continent and elements of human modernity appeared in different places, and so different parts of Africa contributed to the emergence of what we call modern humans"
"Homo heidelbergensis Homo heidelbergensis is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans in the genus Homo of the Middle Pleistocene (between about 700,000 and 300,000 years ago), known from fossils found in Southern Africa, East Africa and Europe. African ""H. heidelbergensis"" has a several subspecies. The subspecies are ""Homo heidelbergensis heidelbergensis, Homo heidelbergensis daliensis, Homo heidelbergensis rhodesiensis,"" and ""Homo heidelbergensis steinheimensi."" The derivation of ""Homo sapiens"" from ""Homo rhodesiensis"" has often been proposed, but is obscured by a fossil gap during 400–260 kya. The species was originally named ""Homo heidelbergensis"" due to the skeleton's first discovery in Heidelberg, Germany."