The most recent research reveals that the oldest fossilized remains of humans are one million years older than previously believed. In the Sterkfontein caves in the Cradle of Humanity world heritage site southwest of Johannesburg, stunning Australopithecus fossils have been discovered.
More Australopithecus fossils have been discovered at this location than at any other site on the globe. “Mrs. Ples,” the most well-known, was one of them.
The most intact Australopithecus africanus skull ever discovered in South Africa in 1947 is known as “Mrs. Ples.”
In the past, specialists guessed that Mrs. Ples and other fossils discovered in the cave at a comparable depth were between 2.1 and 2.6 million years old. The earlier measurements now seem to be inaccurate.
French scientist Laurent Bruxelles noticed in the most recent study that the “chronologically that didn’t fit.” One of the authors of a paper that was released on Monday in the science journal PNAS in Bruxelles.
It was strange to find some Australopithecus living for such a long time, he told the news agency AFP.
According to recent tests, the earliest humans likely roamed the planet between 3.4 and 3.7 million years ago. They might have roamed the planet at the same time as their East African ancestors like the well-known “Lucy.”
Homo habilis was already present in area 2.2 million years ago. But at the depth of the cave where Mrs. Ples was discovered, there were no indications of Homo habilis.
The earliest member of the Homo genus, which also includes Homo sapiens, is Homo habilis.
