New fossil discovery of an early human ancestor reveals that it walked upright, just like humans

 

Remarkable new fossils from Swartkrans Cave reveal that a prehistoric relative of humans was also extremely small and vulnerable to predators.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of the Witwatersrand

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

The new Paranthropus robustus thigh and shin bones, articulated at the knee joint. 

view more 

Credit: Jason L. Heaton

Paranthropus robustus was a species of prehistoric human that lived in South Africa about two million years ago, alongside Homo ergaster, a direct ancestor of modern people. Fossils of Paranthropus robustus are found in abundance at Swartkrans Cave, situated about halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria. Much has been revealed about the diet and social organisation of this extinct species based on studies of its many skulls and hundreds of teeth, which have been recovered from Swartkrans since scientific excavations began there in 1948. 

For instance, the extremely heavy jaws and thickly enameled teeth of Paranthropus robustus suggest that, when times were lean, it was capable of subsisting on low quality foods that were difficult to chew. Moreover, some of the skulls and teeth of Paranthropus robustus are exceptionally large, while others are robust but not as large as those in the first group. This suggests that Paranthropus robustus was characterised by larger males and smaller females, indicating a mating system called polygyny, in which a single dominant male mates with multiple females.

Unfortunately, Swartkrans has over the years yielded many fewer bones from the rest of the Paranthropus robustus skeleton, limiting our understanding of its stature, posture, and locomotion, essential characteristics related to finding food and mates. A major new find from Swartkrans, the first articulating hipbone, thigh bone, and shin bone of Paranthropus robustus, changes that. 

A team of international researchers affiliated to the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University), in South Africa including Travis Pickering, Matthew Caruana, Marine Cazenave, Ron Clarke, Jason Heaton, A.J. Heile, Kathleen Kuman, and Dominic Stratford, indicates in new research that this group of fossils belong to a single, young adult Paranthropus robustus. The fossil not only demonstrates that the species was, like modern humans, a habitual upright walker, but also confirms it was also extremely small. The research was published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

“It is estimated that this individual, probably a female, was only about a meter tall and 27 kg when it died, making it even smaller than adults from other diminutive early human species, including those represented by the famous ‘Lucy’ (Australopithecus afarensis, about 3.2 million years old) and ‘Hobbit’ (Homo floresiensis, about 90,000 years old) skeletons, from Ethiopia and Indonesia, respectively,” says Professor Pickering from the Univesity of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the research. 

The small size of the new Paranthropus robustus individual would have made it vulnerable to predators — such as sabertooth cats and giant hyenas — known to have occupied the area around Swartkrans Cave. This notion is confirmed by the team’s investigation of damage on the surface of the fossils, which includes tooth marks and other chewing damage identical to that made by leopards on the bones of their prey. 

“Although it seems that this particular Paranthropus robustus individual was the unfortunate victim of predation, that conclusion does not mean that the entire species was inept. We know that Paranthropus robustus survived in South Africa for over a million years and is found invariably, and at various sites, in spatial association with stone and bone tools,” says Pickering. 

Those implements were used for a variety of purposes, including butchering animals for their meat and digging for edible roots and underground insects. It is a matter of current research whether Paranthropus robustus, contemporaneous Homo ergaster, or both, was the maker and user of those important tools—but the Swartkrans team believes that Paranthropus robustus very likely possessed the cognitive and physical capabilities to do both.

The team’s continued investigation of the fossils includes CT-scan analyses of internal bone structures, which will provide additional information on the growth and developmental patterns of Paranthropus robustus, as well as adding details to our growing appreciation of its locomotor behaviours.

---

Journal

Journal of Human Evolution

Prehistoric bone tool ‘factory’ hints at early development of abstract reasoning in human ancestors

The oldest collection of mass-produced prehistoric bone tools reveal that human ancestors were likely capable of more advanced abstract reasoning one million years earlier than thought, finds a new study involving researchers at UCL and CSIC- Spanish National Research Council.

The paper, published in Nature, describes a collection of 27 now-fossilised bones that had been shaped into hand tools 1.5 million years ago by human ancestors.

It’s the earliest substantial collection of tools made from bone ever found, revealing that they were being systematically produced one million years earlier than archaeologists once thought.

Early human ancestors known as hominins (human ancestors who could walk upright) had already been making tools out of stone in some capacity for at least a million years, but there’s been scant evidence of widespread toolmaking out of bones before about 500,000 years ago.

The hominins who shaped the recently-discovered bone tools did so in a manner similar to how they made tools out of stone, by chipping away small flakes to create sharp edges – a process called ‘knapping’.

This transfer of techniques from one medium to another shows that the hominins who made the bone tools had an advanced understanding of toolmaking, and that they could adapt their techniques to different materials, a significant intellectual leap. It could indicate that human ancestors at that time possessed a greater level of cognitive skills and brain development than scientists thought.

Co-author Dr Renata F. Peters (UCL Archaeology) said: “The tools show evidence that their creators carefully worked the bones, chipping off flakes to create useful shapes. We were excited to find these bone tools from such an early timeframe. It means that human ancestors were capable of transferring skills from stone to bone, a level of complex cognition that we haven’t seen elsewhere for another million years.”

Lead author Dr Ignacio de la Torre of the CSIC-Spanish National Research Council added: “This discovery leads us to assume that early humans significantly expanded their technological options, which until then were limited to the production of stone tools and now allowed new raw materials to be incorporated into the repertoire of potential artifacts.

“At the same time, this expansion of technological potential indicates advances in the cognitive abilities and mental structures of these hominins, who knew how to incorporate technical innovations by adapting their knowledge of stone work to the manipulation of bone remains.”

The tools were discovered in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, a site renowned for its long history of important archaeological discoveries revealing the origins of humans.

The researchers found 27 bones that had been shaped into tools at the site. The bones mostly came from large mammals, mostly elephants and hippos. The tools are exclusively made from the animals’ limb bones, as these are the most dense and strong.

The tools originate from a time in prehistory where early hominin cultures were undergoing one of the first ever technological transitions.

The very earliest stone tools come from the “Oldowan” age which stretched from about 2.7 million years ago to 1.5 million years ago. It employs a simple method for making stone tools, by chipping one or a few flakes off a stone core using a hammerstone.

The bone tools reported in this study were from the time that the ancient human ancestors were progressing into the “Acheulean” age which began as far back as about 1.7 million years ago. The Acheulean technology is best characterised by the use of more intricate handaxes that were carefully shaped by knapping – allowing the production of tools through more standardised means. 

The bone tools show that these more advanced techniques were carried over and adopted for use on bones as well, something previously unseen in the fossil record for another million years, much later into the Acheulean age.

Prior to this find, bones shaped into tools had only been identified sporadically in rare, isolated instances in the fossil record and never in a manner that implied that human ancestors were systematically producing them.

Though it’s unclear precisely what the tools were used for, because of their overall shape, size and sharp edges, it’s likely that they may have been employed to process animal carcasses for food.

It’s also unclear which species of human ancestor crafted the tools. No hominin remains were found alongside the collection of bone artefacts, though it’s known that, at the time, our human ancestor Homo erectus and another hominin species known as Paranthropus boisei were inhabitants of the region.

Because these tools were such an unexpected discovery, the researchers hope that their findings will prompt archaeologists to re-examine bone discoveries around the world in case other evidence of bone tools has been missed.

The first Bronze Age settlement in the Maghreb

 

UB researcher leads discovery of great significance for the history of Africa and the Mediterranean.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Barcelona

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Kach Kouch is located ten kilometres from the present-day coast, near the Strait of Gibraltar, and thirty kilometres southeast of Tétouan. 

view more 

Credit: Hamza Benattia Melgarejo ( University of Barcelona)

Most Bronze Age settlements have been documented in European territory. Despite its geographical proximity, the Maghreb has always been absent from these historical narratives, erroneously characterized as an ‘empty land’ until the arrival of the Phoenicians around 800 BC. Now, a research study led by Hamza Benattia Melgarejo ( University of Barcelona) has uncovered the first Bronze Age settlement in this geographical area, predating the Phoenician period. This discovery is of great significance for the history of Africa and the Mediterranean. 

 

According to the results published in Antiquity, excavations at Kach Kouch, located in northwest Morocco, reveal a human occupation datable to between 2200 and 600 BC. This would show that it would be the earliest site of this chronology in Mediterranean Africa, except for Egypt. 

The international research team, led by Hamza Benattia Melgarejo, PhD student at the UB’s Faculty of Geography and History and member of the UB’s Classical and Protohistoric Archaeology Research Group, has been working on the prehistoric settlement of Kach Kouch, which extends over an area of approximately one hectare near the Lau River. It is located ten kilometres from the present-day coast, near the Strait of Gibraltar, and thirty kilometres southeast of Tétouan. 

Excavations have revealed different phases of occupation. The first, from 2200-2000 BC, is poorly represented but significant. The evidence suggests an initial contemporary occupation in the transition from the Bronze Age to neighbouring Iberia. 

The second phase, 1300-900 BC, is a vibrant period in the history of the settlement. A stable agricultural community was established at Kach Kouch and is the first definitive evidence of sedentary life before the Phoenician presence in the Maghreb. Wooden mud-brick buildings, rock-cut silos and grinding stones reveal a thriving agricultural economy based on crops such as barley and wheat, supplemented by sheep, goats and cattle. 

A third phase, extending from 800 to 600 BC, demonstrates the flexibility and adaptability of the inhabitants of Kach Kouch. During this period, several cultural innovations from the eastern Mediterranean were introduced, such as wheel-thrown pottery, iron tools and new architectural traditions using stone. This mix of local and foreign practices illustrates how the community actively participated in Mediterranean exchange networks.

“Kach Kouch is one of the first well-documented examples of continuous settlement in the Maghreb and tells a very different story from the one that has existed for a long time: it shows the history of dynamic local communities that were far from isolated”, says Benattia. “The excavations at this site are another step towards correcting these historical biases and reveal that the Maghreb was an active participant in the social, cultural and economic networks of the Mediterranean”, says the UB researcher. 

 

---

Journal

Antiquity

DOI

10.15184/aqy.2025.10 

A a reduction in the population size of our ancestors from about 100,000 to about 1000 individuals

 Today, there are more than 8 billion human beings on the planet. We dominate Earth’s landscapes, and our activities are driving large numbers of other species to extinction. Had a researcher looked at the world sometime between 800,000 and 900,000 years ago, however, the picture would have been quite different. Hu et al. used a newly developed coalescent model to predict past human population sizes from more than 3000 present-day human genomes (see the Perspective by Ashton and Stringer). The model detected a reduction in the population size of our ancestors from about 100,000 to about 1000 individuals, which persisted for about 100,000 years. The decline appears to have coincided with both major climate change and subsequent speciation events.

Article

Archaeology: Vesuvian ash cloud turned brain to glass

 

A unique dark-coloured organic glass, found inside the skull of an individual who died in Herculaneum during the 79 CE Mount Vesuvius eruption, likely formed when they were killed by a very hot but short-lived ash cloud. The conclusion, from research published in Scientific Reports, is based on an analysis of the physical properties of the glass, thought to comprise the fossilised brain of the individual.

Glass rarely occurs naturally due to the specific conditions required for formation. For a substance to become glass, its liquid form must cool fast enough to not crystallise when becoming solid — requiring a large temperature difference between the substance and its surroundings — and the substance must become solid at a temperature well above that of its surroundings. As a result, it is extremely difficult for an organic glass to form, as ambient temperatures are rarely low enough for water — a key component of organic matter — to solidify. The only suspected natural organic glass was identified in 2020 in Herculaneum, Italy, but it was not clear how this glass formed.

Guido Giordano and colleagues analysed fragments of glass sampled from inside the skull and spinal cord of a deceased individual from Herculaneum, found lying in their bed in the Collegium Augustalium. The results of the analysis — which included imaging using X-rays and electron microscopy — indicated that, for the brain to become glass, it must have been heated above at least 510 degrees Celsius before cooling rapidly.

The authors note that this could not have occurred if the individual was heated solely by the pyroclastic flows which buried Herculaneum, as the temperatures of these flows did not reach higher than 465 degrees Celsius and would have cooled slowly. The authors therefore conclude, based on modern volcanic eruption observations, that a super-heated ash cloud which dissipated quickly was the first deadly event during Vesuvius’s eruption. They theorise that such an event would have raised the individual’s temperature above 510 degrees Celsius, before it rapidly cooled to ambient temperatures as the cloud dissipated. The bones of the individual’s skull and spine likely protected the brain from complete thermal breakdown, allowing fragments to form this unique organic glass.

---

Journal

Scientific Reports

Earliest evidence for humans in rainforests

 

Rainforests are a major world biome which humans are not thought to have inhabited until relatively recently. New evidence now shows that humans lived in rainforests by at least 150 thousand years ago in Africa, the home of our species.

Our species originated in Africa around 300 thousand years ago, but the ecological and environmental contexts of our evolution are still little understood. In the search for answers, rainforests have often been overlooked, generally thought of as natural barriers to human habitation. 

Now, in a new study published in Nature, an international team of researchers challenge this view with the discovery that humans were living in rainforests within the present-day Côte d'Ivoire much earlier than previously thought. The article reveals that human groups were living in rainforests by 150 thousand years ago and argues that human evolution occurred across a variety of regions and habitats. 

The story of this discovery begins in the 1980s, when the site was first investigated by co-author Professor Yodé Guédé of l'Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny on a joint Ivorian-Soviet mission. Results from this initial study revealed a deeply stratified site containing stone tools in an area of present-day rainforest. But the age of the tools – and the ecology of the site when they were deposited there – could not be determined.

“Several recent climate models suggested the area could have been a rainforest refuge in the past as well, even during dry periods of forest fragmentation,” explains Professor Eleanor Scerri, leader of the Human Palaeosystems research group at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and senior author of the study. “We knew the site presented the best possible chance for us to find out how far back into the past rainforest habitation extended.”

The Human Palaeosystems team therefore mounted a mission to re-investigate the site. “With Professor Guédé’s help, we relocated the original trench and were able to re-investigate it using state of the art methods that were not available thirty to forty years ago,” says Dr. James Blinkhorn, researcher at the University of Liverpool and the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. The renewed study took place just in time, as the site has since been destroyed by mining activity.

“Before our study, the oldest secure evidence for habitation in African rainforests was around 18 thousand years ago and the oldest evidence of rainforest habitation anywhere came from southeast Asia at about 70 thousand years ago,” explains Dr. Eslem Ben Arous, researcher at the National Centre for Human Evolution Research (CENIEH), the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and lead author of the study. “This pushes back the oldest known evidence of humans in rainforests by more than double the previously known estimate.”

The researchers used several dating techniques, including Optically Stimulated Luminescence and Electron-Spin Resonance, to arrive at a date roughly 150 thousand years ago. 

At the same time, sediment samples were separately investigated for pollen, silicified plant remains called phytoliths, and leaf wax isotopes. Analyses indicated the region was heavily wooded, with pollen and leaf waxes typical for humid West African rainforests.  Low levels of grass pollen showed that the site wasn’t in a narrow strip of forest, but in a dense woodland. 

“This exciting discovery is the first of a long list as there are other Ivorian sites waiting to be investigated to study the human presence associated with rainforest,” says Professor Guédé joyfully. 

“Convergent evidence shows beyond doubt that ecological diversity sits at the heart of our species,” says Professor Scerri. “This reflects a complex history of population subdivision, in which different populations lived in different regions and habitat types. We now need to ask how these early human niche expansions impacted the plants and animals that shared the same niche-space with humans. In other words, how far back does human alteration of pristine natural habitats go?”

The research was funded by the Max Planck Society and the Leakey Foundation. 

---

Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-08613-y 

Neanderthals experienced population crash 110,000 years ago

A new study by an international team of scholars, including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York, suggests that Neanderthals experienced a dramatic loss of genetic variation during the course of their evolution, foreshadowing their eventual extinction.

The study, co-authored by Binghamton University Professor of Anthropology Rolf Quam and graduate student Brian Keeling, measured the morphological diversity in the semicircular canals, structures of the inner ear responsible for our sense of balance, in two exceptional collections of human fossils from the sites of Atapuerca (Spain) and Krapina (Croatia), as well as from various European and Western Asian sites. 

“The development of the inner ear structures is known to be under very tight genetic control, since they are fully formed at the time of birth,” said Quam. “This makes variation in the semicircular canals an ideal proxy for studying evolutionary relationships between species in the past since any differences between fossil specimens reflect underlying genetic differences. The present study represents a novel approach to estimating genetic diversity within Neandertal populations.”

The Atapuerca fossils—referred to as "pre-Neanderthals"—date to about 400,000 years ago and represent the earliest fossils that anthropologists consider clear Neandertal ancestors. The Neanderthals emerged around 250,000 years ago from these populations which inhabited the Eurasian continent between 500,000 and 250,000 years ago. The Croatian site of Krapina represents the most complete collection of early Neanderthals and dates to approximately 130,000 years ago. The researchers calculated the amount of morphological diversity (i.e., disparity) of the semicircular canals of both samples, comparing them with each other and with a sample of “classic” Neanderthals of different ages and geographical origins.

“It is exciting to be included in this research project which relies on some of the latest cutting-edge methodologies in our field,” said Keeling. “As a student of human evolution, I am always amazed at research that pushes the boundaries of our knowledge.”

Recent research based on ancient DNA samples extracted from fossils revealed the existence of a drastic loss of genetic diversity between early Neanderthals and the later "classic" Neanderthals. Technically known as a "bottleneck", this genetic loss is frequently the consequence of a reduction in the number of individuals of a population. The ancient DNA data indicate that the decline in genetic variation took place approximately 110,000 years ago.

The new study's findings reveal that the morphological diversity of the semicircular canals of classic Neanderthals is clearly lower than that of pre-Neanderthals and early Neanderthals, which aligns with the ancient DNA results. 

The study was led by Alessandro Urciuoli (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and Mercedes Conde-Valverde (director of the Cátedra de Otoacústica Evolutiva de HM Hospitales y la Universidad de Alcalá). Conde-Valverde, co-author of the study, emphasized the importance of the analyzed sample.

“By including fossils from a wide geographical and temporal range, we were able to capture a comprehensive picture of Neanderthal evolution,” said Conde-Valverde. “The reduction in diversity observed between the Krapina sample and classic Neanderthals is especially striking and clear, providing strong evidence of a bottleneck event.”

On the other hand, the results challenge the previously accepted idea that the origin of the Neanderthal lineage was associated with a significant loss of genetic diversity, prompting the need to propose new explanations for their origin. 

“We were surprised to find that the pre-Neanderthals from the Sima de los Huesos exhibited a level of morphological diversity similar to that of the early Neanderthals from Krapina,” said Alessandro Urciuoli, lead author of the study. “This challenges the common assumption of a bottleneck event at the origin of the Neanderthal lineage.”

The study, “Semicircular canals shed light on bottleneck events in the evolution of the Neanderthal clade,” was published in Nature Communications.

---

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-56155-8  

Origin and diversity of Hun Empire populations

 

Far-reaching genetic ties between the Mongolian steppe and Central Europe under Hun rule

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Excavation photo of the Hun-period “eastern-type” burial from Budapest, Népfürdő Street (Hungary).

view more 

Credit: © Boglárka Mészáros, BHM Aquincum Museum

The Huns suddenly appeared in Europe in the 370s, establishing one of the most influential although short-lived empires in Europe. Scholars have long debated whether the Huns were descended from the Xiongnu. In fact, the Xiongnu Empire dissolved around 100 CE, leaving a 300-year gap before the Huns appeared in Europe. Can DNA lineages that bridge these three centuries be found?

To address this question, researchers analyzed the DNA of 370 individuals that lived in historical periods spanning around 800 years, from 2nd century BCE to 6th century CE, encompassing sites in the Mongolian steppe, Central Asia, and the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe. In particular, they examined 35 newly sequenced genomes ranging from: a 3rd-4th century site in Kazakhstan and 5th-6th century contexts in the Carpathian Basin, including exceptional Hun-period burials that exhibit Eastern or “steppe” traits often linked to nomadic traditions (i.e. “eastern-type” burials).

The study was carried out as part of the ERC Synergy Grant project HistoGenes (No. 856453), by a multidisciplinary research team of geneticists, archaeologists and historians, including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The results showed that there was not a large Asian- or steppe-descended community living in the Carpathian Basin after the Huns' arrival. However, they identified a small but distinct set of individuals - often belonging to the “eastern-type” burials - who did carry significant East Asian genetic signatures. Advanced comparisons of genealogical connections (the analysis of shared DNA segments known as identical-by-descent, or IBD) led to a remarkable discovery. Co-first author Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology adds: “It came as a surprise to discover that few of these Hun-period individuals in Europe share IBD links with some of the highest-ranking imperial elite individuals from the late Xiongnu Empire”. These connections also include an individual from the largest terrace tomb ever discovered in a Xiongnu context.

Connections across the steppe and mixed legacy

This link suggests that some among the Huns in Europe could trace their lineage back to important late Xiongnu burials from the Mongolian steppe. Yet the archaeogenomic picture for most Hun and post-Hun period individuals in the Carpathian Basin is far more varied. Co-first author Zsófia Rácz of the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest adds: “DNA and archaeological evidence reveal a patchwork of ancestries, pointing to a complex process of mobility and interaction rather than a mass migration.” While these connections confirm the presence of some direct descendants of Xiongnu elites, the study also shows that the population of the Hun empire in Europe was genetically highly heterogeneous. Another key conclusion of the study is that the 5th century “eastern-type” burials from Central Europe are highly diverse in both their cultural and genetic heritage.

The findings also underscore that the Huns’ arrival in Europe contrasts with that of the Avars two centuries later. Co-corresponding author Walter Pohl of the Austrian Academy of Sciences adds: “The Avars came directly to Europe after their East-Asian empire had been destroyed by the Turks, and many of their descendants still carried considerable East Asian ancestry until the end of their rule in c. 800. The ancestors of Attila’s Huns took many generations on their way westward and mixed with populations across Eurasia”.

Implications for European history

This research illuminates how past societies in the Carpathian Basin adapted and changed in response to new arrivals. Co-corresponding author Zuzana Hofmanová of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology adds: “Although the Huns dramatically reshaped the political landscape, their actual genetic footprint - outside of certain elite burials - remains limited”. Instead, the population as a whole appears to be predominantly of European origin and have continued local traditions, with some newly arrived steppe influences woven in.

Co-corresponding author Johannes Krause, director of the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthroplogy, adds: “From a broader perspective, the study underscores how cutting-edge genetic research, in combination with careful exploration of  the archaeological and historical context, can resolve centuries-old debates about the composition and origin of past populations”. While many questions remain, this work offers compelling evidence for direct connections between the Hun period population, the steppe and the Xiongnu Empire, deepening our understanding of the dynamic networks that linked East and West Eurasia in the past.