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comment by theadvancedapes
theadvancedapes  ·  3556 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Oldest Known Homo Fossil Discovered

Interesting find! That is indeed quite a bit older than I would have expected for an early Homo species, the time seems to get pushed back every year now. I guess that just reconfirms what everyone in paleoanthropology (should) already know: we don't have enough data to say anything very specific about early human evolution! Consequently, the narrative of our origin is always by necessity evolving and that should be the case forever. With that being said, this additional piece of evidence doesn't radically change anything. Paleoanthropologists have known for a long time that Ethiopia was a human evolutionary hot spot. It would take a lot of evidence to dethrone it as the most important region for the very early emergence of a human-like neocortex size, fire, tool-use, and all of those other important abilities that proved truly critical in the context of our existence as a whole.