Probing the world of ancient humans
We're also learning more about the world of our ancient relatives, although there's not enough information to use the word "ancestor."
A remarkable find in Dmanisi, Georgia, gave us the most complete skull ever of an individual from the early Homo genus. It is the fifth example of an ancient hominid, a bipedal primate mammal that walked upright, at this site.
Scientists involved in the discovery proposed that these individuals are members of a single evolving Homo erectus species, examples of which have been found in Africa and Asia. They also said that what have traditionally been called distinct species from this period -- Homo ergaster, Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis -- could actually be variations on a single species, Homo erectus.
That's a radical departure from how ancient human relatives are currently classified. Other experts said the skull is an important find, but disagreed with the controversial theories regarding Homo erectus membership.
Another potential game-changer was the reconstruction of the nearly complete mitochondrial genome of an ancient human relative. It is the oldest DNA to be recovered from an early humanlike species, and is about 400,000 years old.
The sequencing technique used in this study, said senior author Svante Paabo, "opens a possibility to now do this at many other sites, and really begin to understand earlier human evolution.