A Society Too Complex to Survive

Homo sapiens evolved as a separate species about 300,000 years ago. Measured in generations (with each generation lasting 20 years), that means there are about 15,000 great-great-etc. grandparents separating you from the earliest human ancestors. 

While that’s a remarkable fact in itself, what’s really remarkable is how the world each of those generations experienced was remarkably static. Of course, there were natural disasters and wars. In general, however, the “techno-social” universe your 9,045th great-grandparent lived in was not very different from the one your 9,046th one inhabited. The same holds true for the vast majority of generations after them.  READ MORE...

Before Homo Sapiens Existed

Archaeologists from Europe and Africa have uncovered the oldest wood structure ever discovered, dating back almost half a million years — meaning an unknown species of hominins, predating us homo sapiens, was presumably responsible for its creation.

The researchers laid out their findings in a recent paper in the science journal Nature, where they reported that they had found the wood structure of "two interlocking logs joined transversely by an intentionally cut notch" at a site in Kalambo Falls, Zambia, and dated it to a distant 476,000 years ago. 

At the same location, which the scientists say was likely the foundation for a dwelling or platform, they also found four tools fashioned from wood: a digging stick, a cut log, a wedge, and notched branch, each also dating to before the time of modern humans.

"This find has changed how I think about our early ancestors," said University of Liverpool archaeology professor and the paper's lead author Larry Barham in a statement. "Forget the label ‘Stone Age,’ look at what these people were doing: they made something new, and large, from wood. 

They used their intelligence, imagination, and skills to create something they’d never seen before, something that had never previously existed."

Handy Man
The wood was preserved because Kalambo Falls kept the pieces permanently waterlogged, hence sealing them away from oxygen and oxygen-dependant bacteria that would degrade them. 

The finding is particularly significantbecause wood has rarely been preserved from the Early Stone Age — offering an ultra-rare peek into the lives of our distant ancestors.  READ MORE...

Species Buries Dead Before Humans 100,000 Year Ago

A reproduction of the skull of a Homo naledi named Leti, found inside the Rising Star Cave System at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site near Maropeng, South Africa.   Wikus de Wet/AFP via Getty Images

An extinct species called Homo naledi buried their dead 100,000 years before humans.

These actions were previously thought to be associated with larger-brained species.

The findings challenge previous assumptions about the progress of human evolution.

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Researchers have found that an extinct human species buried their dead and carved symbols on cave walls 100,000 years before humans, challenging previous assumptions about human evolution.

The species, called Homo naledi, had brains about one-third the size of a modern human's, according to CNN.      

Until now, these behaviors had only been associated with larger-brained species such as Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.

The research is laid out in three studies accepted for publication in the journal eLife, CNN said.       READ MORE...

Certain About our Past

Archaeologists around the world have declared a universal consensus, stating that all archaeological records can give us a consistent understanding of the past.

In a shock move, every single archaeologist has co-signed the same agreement.

No longer will there be disputes about how much meat ancient humans ate, whether they migrated across ice, or what the oldest Homo sapiens remains are – the leading researchers in the field, and also every other researcher in the field, have finally come to the same conclusion.

“There’s enough discord and disagreement in the world as it is. We don’t need to add more rigorous academic debate,” says Professor Helen Hoakes, deputy head of archaeology at the University of Eastern Australia.

“Archaeologists are famous for putting forward different and conflicting theories about what their evidence suggests,” explains Dennis Ovan, director of the Johannesburg Old Knowledge Institute for Excellence in Skulls (JOKIES).

“But when we finally sat down and talked, we realised that almost all of these arguments stemmed from petty disputes on field trips.

“Limited and competitive funding, massive ideological differences, the publish-or-perish world of academia – all of that can be smoothed over by apologising for waking up a whole tent one time, even though you said you weren’t a snorer.”

The centrepiece of the agreement is a comprehensive and universal primer on archaeological ethics, detailing the most ethical way to do archaeological research.

“It turns out that the ethics of archaeology was the easiest to solve of all,” says Dr Anna-Indie Jones, an ethicist at the Centre of Innovation for Dusty Stuff we Thought Looked Important.

“Everyone in the world places exactly the same cultural and spiritual significance in the past, and they all have the same codes for dealing with historic artefacts and ancient human remains.”

Jones would not provide any examples of these codes, saying “it’s all in the agreement” while gently edging out the door of the lab.  READ MORE...

Earliest Evidence of Species

The course of human evolution never did run smooth. The emergence of hominins on the continent of Africa is full of twists, turns, gaps, and dead ends, which makes it all the more difficult to retrace the rise of our own species.


Today, we still don't really know when or where the first Homo sapiens appeared on the scene, although an archaeological site in southwestern Ethiopia is one of our best lines of evidence.

It was here, in the 1960s, that paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey uncovered the earliest examples of fossils with undisputedly modern human anatomies.

To be clear, older remains attributed to Homo sapiens exist, dating back hundreds of thousands of years. But the line between us and our ancestors is a smear of characteristics, leaving us with the remains known as Omo I as a starting point for what is unequivocally modern.

The ancient bones of this long lost ancestor, named for the nearby Omo River, were buried with mollusk shells, which were, at the time, dated to about 130,000 years of age.

In the decades since, radioactive dating of the surrounding soil has allowed us to push back that age even further to about 200,000 years. And yet even that could be an underestimation.  READ MORE...