A full set is two on the top and two on the bottom.
Sebastian Kaulitzki/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
Two dental experts explain that these furthest-back molars may be a not-so-necessary leftover from early human evolution.
Three upright walkers, including Lucy (center) and two specimens of Australopithecus sediba , a human ancestor from South Africa dating back nearly 2 million years.
Image compiled by Peter Schmid and courtesy of Lee R. Berger/Wikimedia Commons
Walking has taken a very long time to develop, with evidence of bipedalism among early humans in Africa roughly 4.4 million years ago.
The original Dikika child skull (left), a 3D model produced with synchrotron scanning (middle), and a model corrected for distortion during fossilisation (right).
Gunz et al. (2020) / Science Advances.
Our findings reveal the slowing down of brain development in our ape-like ancestors began more than three million years ago.
MRD skull.
Dale Omori, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History
The hominin known as Lucy may not be the direct ancestor of humans.
The Taung child (foreground) was the first of a long series of human ancestors discovered in Africa.
Julien Benoit
Recent research suggests that humankind’s origins lay outside of Africa. This is the nature of science: a paradigm that cannot be questioned on a regular basis becomes a dogma.
Upper teeth of a Neanderthal who lived about 40,000 years ago.
Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg
Anthropologists gather clues about how our ancient ancestors lived from their teeth. What will future anthropologists make of us based on the fossilized pearly whites we’ll leave behind?
The skull of Homo naledi is built like those of early Homo species but its brain was just more than half the size of the average ancestor from 2 million years ago.
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Despite claims about its age, puzzling combinations of features from Homo naledi gives it an uncanny resemblance to human beings.