Archives - Anthropology: Page 14
Author: paul carson (Sat Jul 29, 2006 4:41 pm)
Title: anthropology
Conventional paleoanthropological wisdom holds that the first humans to leave Africa were tall, large-brained people equipped with sophisticated stone tools who began migrating northward around a million years age.
New fossil discoveries in the Republic of Georgia are forcing scholars to rethink that scenario in its entirety. The remains are nearly half a million years older than hominid remains previously recognized as the most ancient outside of Africa. They are also smaller and accompanied by more primitive implements than expected.
These finds raise the question of what prompted our ancestors to leave their natal land. They are also providing scientists with a rare opportunity to study not just a single representative of early Homo but a population.
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