In Groundbreaking Find, Three Kinds of Early Humans Unearthed Living Together in South Africa

The different hominid species, possibly including the oldest-known Homo erectus, existed in the region’s hills and caves



The Drimolen excavations and excavated fossils. (Andy Herries)

By Brian Handwerk
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
APRIL 2, 2020

Scientists studying the roots of humanity’s family tree have found several branches entangled in and around a South African cave.

Two million years ago, three different early humans—Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and the earliest-known Homo erectus—appear to have lived at the same time in the same place, near the Drimolen Paleocave System. How much these different species interacted remains unknown. But their contemporaneous existence suggests our ancient relations were quite diverse during a key transitional period of African prehistory that saw the last days of Australopithecus and the dawn of H. erectus’s nearly two-million-year run.

“We know that the old idea, that when one species occurs another goes extinct and you don’t have much overlap, that’s just not the case,” says study coauthor Andy Herries, a paleoanthropologist at La Trobe University in Australia.



Homo erectus cranium with stylized projection of the outline of the rest of the skull. (Andy Herries, Jesse Martin and Renaud Joannes-Boyau)

Three Species, One Place

Australopithecus africanus is the most primitive of this trio. The lineage dates to 3.3 million years ago and combines human features with ape-like attributes including long, tree climbing-arms. Despite these intermediate features, Australopithecus’s exact relation to modern humans remains unknown. The species is thought to have died out around 2 million years ago.

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/homo-erectus-australopithecus-saranthropus-south-africa-180974571/