Three kinds of early humans unearthed living together in South Africa

[FfFfFfFF 58,120]

Scientists studying the roots of humanity’s family tree have found several branches entangled in and around a South African cave.

Two million years ago, three different early humans—Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and the earliest-known Homo erectus—appear to have lived at the same time in the same place, near the Drimolen Paleocave System. How much these different species interacted remains unknown. But their contemporaneous existence suggests our ancient relations were quite diverse during a key transitional period of African prehistory that saw the last days of Australopithecus and the dawn of H. erectus’s nearly two-million-year run.

Australopithecus africanus is the most primitive of this trio while Paranthropus robustus, an offshoot of the human family tree not considered a direct human ancestor, is known for large, powerful jaws and teeth that could pulverize a diet of nuts, seeds, roots and tubers.

Homo erectus was the first ancestor of modern humans to have human-like body proportions and the first to appear outside of Africa. 

One possibility is that H. erectus originated here and later spread to East Africa and then out of the continent. However, Herries says that the discovery of the oldest-known bones doesn’t necessarily mean H. erectus started in this locale. Perhaps they migrated to the area.

“It seems that Homo erectus and Paranthropus and stone tools all suddenly occur in South Africa at this point,” Herries says. “This suggests that we’ve got movement into the region, and I think it’s really part of this same sort of story. We talk about 'Out of Africa' a lot, but the hominids didn’t know they were going out of Africa. They were just moving.”

“They’ve done a great job demonstrating that while there is this amazing diversity in East Africa (Turkana), there is an amazing but different combination of species diversity in South Africa, with different lineages of hominins hanging around at the same time. Now the number of such sites is doubled. That’s quite important in my view.”

Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/homo-erectrus-australopithecus-saranthropus-south-africa-180974571/

[SarahTannoIsHere 914]

Homo erectus? I think that’s me 

[SarahTannoIsHere 914]

I enjoyed the post, it makes me mad I can’t go back and see how we really started 

[voltron92 2,575]

I'm curious if sexual orientation was a thing in early human species. 

[Delusional 9,221]

20 minutes ago, voltron92 said:

I'm curious if sexual orientation was a thing in early human species. 

I wonder if they had twinks.