PART TWO First Contact: On
''.....The Sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.''
Leo Tolstoy
From My Collection: Flints, Hand-Axes, and Sewing Artifacts that range from 75-500,000 years ago
(Acquired from the Estate of a retired Professor of Anthropology at Rice University, Houston
INTRODUCTION
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The Forensic Mystery of Turkana Boy
In 1984, Dr. Leaky was still working on fossil finds in the area around Lake Turkana Kenya. One of Leaky’s team uncovered a fragment of what looked like a Homo-Erectus. Soon the entire skeleton – brand new to science – were uncovered. It was the first human skeleton ever discovered and he was called ‘’Turkana Boy.’’ (Sometimes called Narakotome Boy)
The find was on the bottom of an ancient lake-bed, semi-face down and caught on the rocks. Leakey knew to follow the path of the ancient river. More bones were found in the silt. And as the boy’s body began to decompose, its genetic materials were disintegrating. It became a quest to uncover what caused his death.
Compared to the Australopithecines around him, there were stark differences. He was with smaller brow, but his bones were huge. (The huge brow on the forehead of Neanderthals were an adaptation that made their jaws incredibly strong and resilient, which was essential for chewing raw meat. From the shape of his backbone and pelvis, we know he was highly mobile. He apparently shared the landscape with others much like himself and bore the name ‘’Homo-Ergaster’ (ἐργαστήρ) or ‘’Working Man.’’
It was suspected that Turkana Boy suffered from a congenital disorder, either of dwarfism or scoliosis. This was because the rib bones appeared asymmetrical to the spine and the reason was attributed to skeletal dysplasia. However, in 2013, a new study showed that when the rib bones were carefully rearranged, it became symmetrical against the spine, and that unusual structure of the vertebrae was characteristics of the early hominins. However, the fossil definitely showed lumbar disc herniation, an injury implicated with his death.[10] He also had a diseased mandible.
His skeleton tells us he was 5’3’’ tall. At first glance he looks like he was a young teenager. His skull has a large brain capacity and lower forehead but otherwise is remarkably close to modern humans. His overall body shape is just like ours. His jaw was lower and larger, and had a more forward position of their palms when they ran. This is evident to the fact that there is a slight twist in the shoulder blade.
Still, in order to reconstruct his life, we needed to further examine his skeleton. The detective work is just beginning. Had he grown to his full height, this ancient hominoid would have been an exceptional sight to see. He could have been well over 6’5''. This is unlike any other species of Homo today.
On the lakeside plains of Eastern Africa, this boy’s structure was completely new to us. As mentioned, he was tall and he was muscular. Special adaptations turned him into a lean young man. His muscular structure was much like ours but there was a subtle difference in the tibia and fibula. These were actually longer in Turkana Boy than in any homo-sapien alive today.
Almost at once, questions arose regarding some of the more unusual traits uncovered by Turkana Boy. In order to understand just how he died, we need to examine how he lived. Unraveling this mystery would uncover startling finds in our own human story. In order to accomplish this – we needed to answer some crucial questions.
Why did he grow to such a height at such a young age? Initially, anthropologists hadn’t considered the importance of childhood development in ancient hominoids. But humans have a relatively long childhood when compared to apes. We don’t reach maturity until we are about fourteen or fifteen, resulting in a longer time of dependency on parents for survival and protection. In contrast, apes have a much shorter childhood and are sexually mature when they reach about seven years of age.
In order to survive, the growth of Turkana Boy was more like a chimpanzee. As humans evolved our childhood was extended. A chimpanzee's brain will be fully developed by the age of three or four. With humans it can be almost twenty years before the brain is fully developed. (Just consider any teenager today!)
This is the mystery of prolonged childhood, and it is something that took anthropologists many years to uncover. Homo-Erectus had no advantage in having children with a long child-cycle where there was dependency on the parents. And this is how we find Turkana Boy. He walked upright and was blessed with a brain twice as large as a chimp but still decidedly smaller than our own.
In the brain of Turkana Boy, we initially assumed he had the gift of communication. But we did not know just what that communication would have been like. His brain had a slight slant in the cortex, which is imperative for speech. But like any good mystery - we uncovered evidence to the contrary. This is crucial to developing a written story. The ability to make speech is a must-have in developing any kind of society.
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Primate Communication
One of the areas I am presently researching is how chimpanzees and other primates communicate with one another. While they are without the ability to speak, they aren't without the ability communicate. Sounds, gestures, non-verbal cues that are all a part of life as a chimpanzee.
At the Primarily Primates sanctuary in San Antonio, long observations of the chimpanzees show a definite communal instinct for communication.
Using squeals, screams, grunts, hoots and barks, they let others know about danger. They also use these to provide team work in hunting other rival chimps. Each call is individual and thus each person Still, we have identified fewer than 30 calls, proving that understanding cross-communication between species.
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The Birth of Language
How Does Language Develop? Noam Chomsky is one of the foremost specialists on Linguistics. He says that language is a uniquely human development and that all children have what is called an innate language acquisition device (LAD). Theoretically, the LAD is an area of the brain that has a set of universal syntactic rules for all languages.
Biologically, Brain size and diaphragm development are crucial to speaking. It appears that only modern human has these traits.
Consider the figurines of modern human from 25,000 years ago. From one area of human culture to another, there is a commonality amongst the early humans based on their artwork and possible religious purposes. In order to have these figurines in multiple locations, made the same way and with he same materials, they require a common definition for what these figurines are. Neanderthals just didn’t have that capability and in the end, it set them apart from Modern Humans.
In addition, it seems as if Neanderthal didn't have the ability to plan ahead. We know this because we readily find enzymes of salmon in cave bear fossils but few in Neanderthals. It seems as if Neanderthal was more of an opportunist and a scavenger, unable to predict where or when certain animals migrated aside from following them directly.
Body hair is another trait that we humans have that separated us ethnographically. Sweat glands were slowly developing and humans began to decline in panting in order to stay cool. If you are not panting, you have the breath with which to make audible sounds, and with human ingenuity, we begin to put patterns of speech together to form words.
Roughly two-million years ago, homo-sapiens began to lose their body hair. Furthermore, there was a real lack of changes in technology with regards to hunting. As we shall see, humans made very little progress. It was because homo-erectus had to compensate for the lack of spears. Spears are a long-range weapon and were unknown at this time.
Thus, the only way Turkana Boy was going to eat meat was if the animals were caught at close range and seized upon by a group working together. These people had to be upright and lean, able to run long distances with great stamina. By chasing animals to exhaustion, they were able to use small hand-axes to attack the animals at close range. The prey would often fall victim to exhaustion.
Doctors examining the boy discovered the spine was bent and compressed. This individual showed he suffered from Scoliosis. Scientists knew that humans this young rarely suffered from this affliction. But there was more. The bones were very large, and very strong. At 1.5 Million years, this was Homo-Erectus, and later generations would spread out of Africa, and migrate all the way to Java, some 6,000 miles away. The ‘’Missing Link’’ seemed far more advanced and far more like us than ever imagined.
Turkana Boy and his group took the practice of scavenging meat killed by other animals. It is certainly a practical use of the predators ability. In body-shape and behavior, they were pioneering and very human in lifestyle. They were the first to use a home-base for tools. (Meaning that they were systematic and repeating of scientific endeavors) Secondly, they discovered that bone-marrow tasted good and was badly needed nutrition for them.
They discovered that Eraster was the first meat-eater. The meat-eating life of Turkana-Boy was very different from the Austalopithicines – which like Lucy, were vegetarian. The chest of Turkana Boy was barrel shaped and his posture, upright. Lucy was short and squat, not likely to grow much past four feet. This suited each of their dietary cuisines as the complications of vegetarianism
restricted the rapid development of an intestinal system.
Ergaster used special rocks to butcher meat and smash bones. They chiseled their hand-axes to have stone-flakes on both sides for sharp knives. This change in diet was a smart move. To grow a big brain you needed to give up. The difference between Lucy and Turkana Boy was that Lucy gave up weight and build. The carnivore-man evolved over time, and soon made their way, where, literally, no man had travelled before – Out of Africa.
Two-Million Years ago, Ergaster began to follow the game. Before long, They pushed out through the old-world, through the Middle-East and into Europe in one direction and Asia in the other. It appeared as if the discovery of Homo-Erectus was the end of a mystery. But doubts began to arise. The earlier supposition of speech was now open to new debate.
Consider this --- The vertebrae in the neck is critical to speech. The spinal chord needs space to include speech and breathing. It is our ability to breathe that allows us to communicate. In contrast, the vertebrae was very small compared to our own. Homo-Erectus was a close relative, but not quite there yet. There is a mystery as to whether these individuals could speak based on their skeletal structure. It was without the ability to communicate with one another.
Ergaster seems to have finally harnessed fire around 1.7 million years ago. It let to a controversial and monumental stage of our evolution which began to yield an immediate impact. It broke the shackles in their minds and let their ideas fly free. With fire, we could migrate freely and in a few thousand generations, they will grow and dominate around the world. Millions of years went by with very little in the way of technological advancement. In a recently uncovered kill zone from the era, additional stone-hand axes were found.
And yet, their brains had not changed their course of everyday life. They were mired in the ‘here’ and ‘now.’ There would have been a moment where the struggle of the desire for survival was set aside. Under the star-lit skies, our ancestors took the time to do the most important of all things – simply relax. We don’t know precisely where and when it happened, but there would have been before them a technological achievement to such a revolutionary degree that we now had the safer means with which to survive. The gift that Fire gave to us was the gift of Time.
And time, perhaps next to space, is a limited boundary. So how we make use of time is the difference between living and dying. Consider the concept of Time. Time- outside the struggle of survival. Time - to contemplate an after world. Time - to carefully consider natural aspects of this world. Time - to see the cycles of birth, life, and death, in the natural world around them.
You will notice that in many of these archaeological sites, random human kind are found isolated in death. It was as if they were simply left there to die, by themselves. Aside from everything else, they just walk away from their dead, leaving them there in the wilderness. It isn't as if that is a cruel thing for the day and age. They are still trapped in their own mind of the here and now.
They know not that they are even trapped in such a space. To do anything aside from simply leaving their dead on the open savanna is unthinkable to them. It is as the animals around them, living and dying in the open. For all their success in overcoming their physical environment, they are still incarcerated to the cold and restless cruelty of a world without imagination.
If you had come across Turkana Boy from a distance, you would have thought it was similar to ourselves. This would be the case until you got closer and you would see the chin is recessed and forehead was sloped back at a strong angle. It would have looked like us from a distance, but it wasn’t us. The overall size was important too. Upon inspection it is clear to see that relative to their size their brain was tiny.
It was an amazing time in Physical Anthropology and Archaeology as new discoveries were happening at a heart-stomping pace. And now --- a chilling new picture was emerging. Homo-Erectus was the size of a large human with the brain of an infant. It seemed like that with many of the answers brought forth infinitely more questions. Like a good novel ---the mystery was deepening.
After close examination, we learned that there is no fusing to the bones in his growth-plates. At first, this was somewhat overlooked due to the size of the skeleton. But, the lack of fusion tells us something else too. He was still growing. And this knowledge implies that he was perhaps even younger than his projected 15 years old. We just didn’t know, nor could we have guessed just how young he was. So when dental specialists studied his teeth, something fascinating was uncovered.
In every human tooth, there are microscopic rods in the enamel that look like tiny beads and they represent one-days growth according to the Circadian Clock. Like rings of a tree, we can see exactly how many sun-rises and sun-sets this young man of Homo-Erectus lived through. What we uncovered was quite shocking.
Turkana Boy may have been as young as eight years old.
Homo-Halibus, the Handy Man
Take a good look at the teeth of Turkana Boy. Note the decay. This is an unusual trait because tooth devay didn’t traditionaly show up until farmers began to cultivate sugars, 10,000 years ago. This fella is 1.5 Million Years old, well before complex sugars would have caused this.
What happened? The baby tooth held on too long, becoming loose. Inside the crevasse between tooth and gum were food particles and thus, when it finally fell out due to an adult tooth erupting, it was already horribly infected.
One other clue emerged in the tooth. A close study revealed that the tooth had a major abscess on it. Instead, his jaw bone show that he had a diseased gum where a deciduous molar, one of his baby teeth- had been shed. Since his skeleton was found almost intact, it didn’t look like a predator had gotten a hold of it.
More Anthropological finds were occurring by following the ‘’crime scene’’ down stream in the dry riverbed. When ribs were found, the excitement grew. The skeleton began to tell even more of this boy’s story. His molars were smaller than our own and chewing would have been very hard. Because of this limitation, it was quite likely that Turkana’s family prepared the food they ate, and this would have required tools.
When paleo-dentists looked closely at the lower jaw, they say something very telling….the molar was very diseased. He had a terrible blood infection. One of his teeth had erupted and was opened with a cavity. What was Homo-Erectus like? His body followed the current of the river and some of his bones were crushed by large animals. His teeth bore witness to the disease and he was in agony when he died.
Forensic anthropologists were sure they had the cause of death for Turkana Boy. He had Sepsis, a blood infection. His last day on earth was a terrible day, for sure. He could not have understood why he felt feverish or why he was in so much pain. A dull throb would have been a constant companion for the last three weeks of his life. With each pulse of his heart, the nerves in the jaw would have been strummed like a guitar.
For reasons we still do not understand, he was alone. Either he went on his own or due to his apparent weakness and inability to eat, he was cast out of the group. It seems unlikely he would have suffered this set-back because we see other instances where the sick and wounded were cared for by others. But we cannot escape the fact that he was not buried by anyone else, and he clearly died in isolation.
On this particular morning he awoke to a high-fever. He was bleeding from inside his mouth and nothing could stem the pain or the blood. The air was dry and the climate was warm, and yet he was certainly hungry. Since we find no evidence of vegetable proteins in his diet, we can safely assume that Turkana Boy would not have eaten anything but meat. With no adaptation to eat vegetables, herbs, or legumes, Turkana Boy was probably weak from starvation by this time.
He walked until he found the coolness of a river where he could drink the water. While bending down, he drank. But when he stood up, the pain was too much, and Turkana Boy collapsed face down in the water. He probably drowned, but most certainly was dying anyway. And that's the best guess we can have, even now.
1.5 Million Years ago, we had all the right characteristics together. Like Homo-Erectus, we could walk upright. But for all intents and purposes, Homo-Erectus was an animal. For the first time, humans had developed a true white around their eyes. This gave an added dimension of emotions to our existence. The boy was an evolutionary marvel, part human and part pre-human, but most of all, our direct ancestor. And putting together his death was essential to understanding his life,
According to a study conducted by the School of Human Origins at Arizona State University and the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, Lucy's spine was shaped to support an upright posture. She had been a tree dweller but was no longer able swing from trees. The bones were small and curved on her hands. She climbed them, but could not transverse them without great difficulty. But, she did something no other living species of Ape had done….Walk upright.
The ability to walk on two legs was the missing adaption that allowed for survival. Lucy had no defense against predatory animals, but standing upright allowed her to see further than any of her ancestors, giving her a survival mechanism that would allow her to use her hands to make and use tools. Her eyes would need to be closer to a more narrow nose in order to have depth perception, a trait that subsequent species of Homo would evolve.
It has long been thought that humanoids needed to have larger brains before they could walk upright and make tools, but clearly this is not the case. Walking upright was a means of survival, and it ultimately led to many other things that allowed humans to use their hands to build, construct, and create. The additional growth of the brain seems to have just been a natural evolution of our species.
For nearly all of human history, everyone in the world had brown eyes. Then, scientists believe, between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, the mutation that causes blue eyes arose in a single individual born somewhere near the Black Sea. Other mutations began to appear as well. Through each and every subsequent genertation, something new was developing in humankind.
Still, in the early 1900s, we may have found physical proof or our humanity, but we had not found culture or any idea of family. Proof of culture and kinship is strikingly recent, and we still haven’t a clear picture. We do see a definite family developing with Neanderthal, 40,000 years ago. Consider the transfer of knowledge needed to take down an elephant or a rhino. This required a depth of intelligence and the ability to transmit those thoughts. The ability to organize and develop a plan to hunt down prey is highly sophisticated and wouldn’t show up that far back.
But recently, scientists have examined the DNA of the Neanderthal bones found in 1856 expecting to see a direct lineage between them and us. But what happened next was truly astonishing. The landscape of our own existence has suddenly changed – instead of one common ancestor, there could have been several. The emerging picture began to show that Neanderthals were drastically different than ourselves. The DNA in-particular was of significant value, and proved much different than our own. This implies that there are two completely separate species of Hominoids out of one completely unique evolutionary tree. When Neanderthals died out due to the rise of Homo Erectus and, we were left alone, an isolated species of hominoid.
In 1848, Captain Edmund Flint found the skull of a Neanderthal man in Forbes Quarry, Gibraltar. This was found at a time when exploration of these ancient hominoids was beginning to really take hold of Europe. The explosion of population throughout Europe and the New World only escalated the importance of these discoveries.
The Skull was overwhelming in its size. The enormous Nasal cavities and the huge eye-sockets didn’t look anything like they had seen before. At one glance you can see that in the age of Darwin, this was an exciting discovery and began to piece together human evolution. With the same energy that we wonder about the animals of the past, we have that same sense of wonder about each of us. How did we get here from there? What were the Neanderthal’s like? Were they as brutish as it seems or were they further advanced than we give them credit for?
Just how exactly this all happened is anyone’s guess. It certainly makes for a lot of assumptions regarding our role in the demise of the prototype Neanderthals. At least one forensic anthropologist believes humans butchered Neanderthals and devoured them. Other theories indicate that drastic climate change ultimately did them in. They were living generation after generation without any impetus to change. In fact, it is even theorized that the same group of Neanderthals lived in the same cave, or caves, for generation upon generation, until finally forced to migrate.
That First Moment
Neanderthals and Humans Meet For The First Time
A team of experts with the Institute for the Study of Human Origins, have even proposed a controversial theory that Neanderthals may have lived there continually for as long 8,000 years! During that time the climate in the Iberian peninsula had seen little change. There was no real impetus to move, that is, until Homo Sapiens came along. And with their arrival, a fierce competition of food, resources and ultimately reproduction with their women, the Neanderthals were no match. There are two different things we learn about Neanderthal when we examine the latest findings:
(1) Neanderthals were not able to reproduce very well. The infant mortality must have been exceedingly high in order to reduce their numbers so drastically and so quickly.
(2) Their demise was met quite quickly, and considering these hearty beings had survived two ice-ages and mass migrations, this was no easy feat. But, imagine if things had been different and there were Neanderthals living with us today. It very nearly happened. And this is the place where our collective imaginations run wild.
We want to know what our brethren looked like, sounded like and whether they were intelligent enough to cope with ever-changing conditions. Scientists recently took a good look at their vocal chords. They noticed that the opening in the throat was larger than that of their human counterparts. Knowing this, we needn’t guess about how Neanderthals sounded. It was certainly very unique.
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The Physical Make-Up of Neanderthals
These people's were exceptionally tough. Any bones we find suggest that they broke just about everything. Much like rodeo performers, the abuses of large animals and the accidents that can happen just trying to hunt them are apparent for everyone to see. Built low and stocky, their bodies were meant to sustain during the sub-zero weather that would kill us today. They developed wide noses to breathe and cool off while working. Incredibly, they adapted fast, losing much of their body hair and building sweat-glands with which to relegate heat. They cooled themselves off by an incredible series of adaptations designed to build a robust and highly advanced people.
The old story about Neanderthals has begun to erode as newer discoveries are being made. One thing is in the proof - Homo Sapiens won out while the Neanderthals did not. Yet their story is indeed somehow our story. In 2015, two bodies were discovered in the forest caverns in Romania. These would be uncovered as the oldest known remains of humans - anywhere.
In 2002, Portuguese archaeologist Joao Zilhoao and several cavers challenged themselves by going deeper and deeper into a cavern. The cave was a part under-water river and mud-pit. But the archaeologists began to find bones. They were cave-bears that clearly hibernated there. The temperature according to those who were there was 40-degrees Farenheit. It was humid, dank, and bog-like.
The cave bear bones were plentiful and everywhere. But after two weeks, the findings suddenly astonished Zilhoao and team, ''...And just like that, an occipital bone is right in front of me. And then a jaw bone showed up as well.'' At first it was assumed they were part of the same human, but after careful examination, they learned that the jaw bone belonged to a different individual. Both bones suggest that these two hunters were in their teenage years - perhaps they were brothers.
There were no signs that these two hunters lived in the cave, but there was no sign that they were dragged there by the cave bears either. It was clear that these two died elsewhere and were washed into the cavern by rushing waters. The jaw was in very good shape and suggest that he had a pretty good diet. At 40,000 years of age, this begins to challenge traditional thinking about malnutrition and the overall health of those who lived in this time period.
There were subtle anomolies in the skull and jaw bone. The forehead was sloped back at a steep angle compared to modern humans. Moreover, their teeth weren't exactly right either. The molars aren't in the right order. Stunned anthropologists did not know what to make of the strange new features. Had Neanderthal and Humans REALLY interbred? The evidence is very compelling. Up until now, no one had ever been able to prove that such a hybrid existed - perhaps until now.
With Neanderthals already well established in Europe, the arrival of humans must have come as a huge shock to them. The remains that were found in Romania tell a different story. They have the unexpected findings in modern humans. But you will find them in Neanderthals. In 2010, the Max Planck Institute cracked the genome of a Neanderthal. Now, with two distinctly different Human-Neanderthal bones there might be a way to see if there is to our Neanderthal brethren.
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Note: I am of the theory that two different brands of primates were never meant to live together due to the intense competition for food. There is no place on the planet where two different members of the Primate family co-exist.
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The click languages spoken by the San people of southern Africa and the Hadzabe of East Africa could be our last links to the original languages spoken by humans in Africa some 40,000 years ago. Given the vocal limitations of Neanderthal Man it seems like a normal progression. The ‘’clicking’’ of their language allowed them to sneak up on their prey.
Another theory contemplates Neanderthal vocal capabilities based on recent findings in Bulgaria. A small bone from the throat area was uncovered in an area where previous Neanderthal bones had been found. This was quite revolutionary in so much as we weren't sure at all if neanderthal could even speak. Even still, language and communication are another adaptation altogether and required a certain level of sophistication which Neanderthal didn't seem to have.
The vocal tracks of the Neanderthal were squashed resulting in a higher pitchedvoice. Other factors are there too. As well as the vocal tracks, neanderthals strange shape would have affected his voice. They had a huge nasal cavity, a large rib cage which gives a lot of breath to their speaking capabilities, and a very heavy skull that sits heavily on the spine. Sound has to travel through those bones and we have to hear them as well as transmit them. It's not an easy thing to comprehend, even with all of our study, and all that we actually DO know.
As we will see later, the burial of Neanderthal revealed something quite unique. The corpse had a tiny bone called the hi-loid, which has a primary function of preserving speech. These Neanderthals were getting things done with careful planning. Behavior between Neanderthals and human-beings.
With a shrill and almost squeaky voice, Neanderthals sounded so high-pitched that it seems highly unlikely they could sneak up on any animal in order to hunt. There were also other subtle skeletal differences between Neanderthals and modern humans as well. The rib-cage expanded outwards in such a way that they did not have much of a waistline and even less in endurance.
With a body that was large and barrel-chested they still had shorter legs and a heavier-than-normal gait. Hunting would have had to be a close-range and in social packs. These early proto-people were not made for endurance and they proved to be no match for their first real competition from Homo-Sapiens.
Homo Sapiens migrated out of Africa and it seems they made their way into Europe, living mainly along the coast soon out-hunting the Neanderthals. In fact, the tools that Homo Sapiens used were further advanced than Neanderthal, and if we are to believe that modern humans were fighting for the same food sources, then it stands to reason that the Neanderthals numbers would begin to dwindle.
It is long thought that Homo Sapiens came from Homo Erectus, who migrated out of Africa. This turned out to be an incorrect assumption. The Ice-Age gave up its grip on the Middle-East and 130,000 years ago humans made their way out of birth-cradle of humanity. The New discoveries are revealing man was tool-maker, tamer of fire, creator of the first human societies, and how Homo Erectus gave way to Homo Sapiens.
It was the knowledge that gave Homo Sapiens the ultimate advantage. But, what if both lines of man came from two lines of hominoid? The new discoveries are complicating our lineage and suggesting that our DNA is far different than some of the earliest of upright man.
When we think about extinction events, we tend to look at the 4.6Billion years of this planet and we wind up thinking that evolutionary paths take such a long time. But in order for a species to go extinct, the deaths have to occur very quickly. It has to happen before too much of procreation can happen. This is essential in our understanding how a planetary extinction event such as the meteor that hit the earth 65 Million years ago could ultimately wipe an entire planet of dinosaurs in 12 months.
There were many evolutionary offshoots of the tree that humanity that didn’t work out. Either they could not adapt to rapidly changing climate changes or they couldn’t compete against other predators. Whatever the reason, our tree has many branches of dead-end humanity. Two Million years ago, homo-ergaster journeyed throughout the world and became Homo-Erectus. Regionally they adapted to according the situation.
But there was something not quite right. Thanks to modern genetics, our human story gets to be pieced together with a little more detail. It was believed that Erectus evolved separately into Homo-Sapiens. When scientists examined the genes of all these people, they were remarkably similar. How could members of the same species, separated by thousands of miles be genetically identical? There had to be one source for all of these genes where we all started.
Hillary Mayell, National Geographic News
