ThE SuN BeAtS DoWn On YoUr BaCk As YoU RoAm ThE AfRiCaN HiLlSiDeS You trudge alongside a scientist and her student returning to your truck empty-handed You spent hours searching the slopes in extreme heat hunting for evidence of ancient beings Clues to humankind’s history may lie buried in these hills But if they do you haven’t found them Suddenly something catches your eye You shout in excitement It’s a piece of bone As you all begin to carefully dig up the find you discover it is not the only bone nearby Aided by a team of archaeologists you help uncover dozens of bone pieces over several days They are all part of one skeleton The skeleton is like none ever found before You and your team have unearthed the remains of an unknown species Researchers use computer programs to recreate the being’s features They learn the being walked upright It had two legs two arms and hair Did you just find the world’s oldest human ancestor 5
chapter WhAt ArE EARLY HUMAN REMAINS Early human remains are body parts of past human-like species These species are the early ancestors of modern humans Archaeologists search for these remains to understand human origins Formal study of early human remains began about 150 years ago Since then scientists have found bones from about 6,000 ancient human-like individuals These remains come from several species Neanderthals are one of the most famous human-like species It was once thought that modern humans evolved directly from Neanderthals But this is not the case Most archaeologists now believe ancient humans and Neanderthals lived at the same time The species are relatives that split from a common ancestor about 500,000 years ago 1 6
However this is relatively recent in the record of human-like fossils Scientists have found human-like species that lived much earlier than Neanderthals In fact the oldest human-like remains ever found are as many as 7 million years old These species help piece together the puzzle of human origins Paleontologists study the skull shapes of early humans and other primates to help determine the size of their brains As early humans evolved into modern humans their brain size increased 7
