Significant Evolutionary Discovery in 2021

This year we discovered more regarding the connections of our ancestors with Neanderthals and Denisovans, around their attitude towards children, which was meaningful and significant for evolutionary scientists. And we have learned more about the times when the first people appeared in America.

In several caverns in South Africa, the remains of an early human antecedent, Paranthropus robustus, or enormous paranthropus, have been uncovered. It is characterized by large, wide cheekbones, large molars and false-rooted teeth, and a jaw adapted for lengthy chewing. The bones of P. robustus discovered this year from Dreamolen Cave near Johannesburg are at least 200,000 years younger than other tremendous paranthropes. Scientists have found that these individuals have a diverse sagittal ridge and slighter bite force. These and other dissimilarities demonstrate microevolution within the P. robustus species.

In November, paleontologists documented the discovery of the oldest known human burial in Africa – a two-and-a-half or three-year-old child found in Kenya. He was buried about 78,000 years ago. The position of his head demonstrates that he was positioned on a kind of pillow that has not endured.

And in December, the oldest child sepulcher in Europe was found. The girl was buried in a cave on the territory of modern Italy 10,000 years ago with an owl’s claw, four pendants, and more than 60 shells with indications of wear. This attitude means that during the Mesolithic era, hunter-gatherers treated girls as full-fledged people.

Science comprehends that our ancestors interbred with other species – so, in the DNA of modern people, about 1.91% of the genetic material of Neanderthals. The skull of a woman who lived at least 30,000 years ago, found this year in the Zlata Kun caves, contained significantly more traces of crossing with Neanderthals – about 3.3%. Analysis showed that these groups interbred somewhere in the Middle East about 50,000 years ago.

French scientists were able to establish the blood group of one Denisovan and three Neanderthals this year. The results affirmed the theory of their origin from Africa, and in addition, distinguished a clear genetic link between the blood groups of Neanderthals, Australian Aborigines, and Papuans. This means that Neanderthals and modern humans may have interbred even before Homo sapiens migrated to Southeast Asia.

In the fall, American archaeologists uncovered modern human footprints in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, set aside 23,000 to 21,000 years ago. The find is all the more surprising because, according to many scientists, at that time massive ice sheets were blockading the passage to North America. Therefore, it is believed that the first people inhabited both Americas no earlier than 13,000 years ago. However, there is growing evidence that this happened thousands of years earlier.