Ancient Ancestors

Ancient Ancestors AncientAncestors is an education outreach initiative offering hands-on labs to high schools.

We deliver a free human origins course in the form of a “Be a Paleoanthropologist for a Day” lab, consisting of 2-3 classroom hours in which biology students, guided by anthropology students and graduates, conduct measurements on 11 skull replicas using customized calipers and protractors, honing in on three variables of hominin evolution: bipedalism (upward gait), encephalization (cranial capacity), and prognathism (size and strength of jaws), and thereafter discuss the significance of their findings. The high school student is challenged to him/herself become the paleoanthropologist and deduce evolutionary facts and patterns based on direct observation. We find that exposing high school biology students to fossil facts – skull replicas of our early biological ancestors – has a profound effect on their understanding of human origins and an appreciation for science. Having incredibly survived for millions of years, hominin skulls provide irrefutable evidence of human evolution. This course will help the student answer questions such as: “Where do we come from?” and “What methods are used to learn about human origins?” The lab format places the young mind in the driver’s seat of discovery.

10/26/2025

They are peaceful, female-led and use s*x in everyday interactions. Now a new conservation scheme could offer a lifeline to our critically endangered close relatives living on the Congo river

10/26/2025

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10/20/2025

A newly uncovered set of 1.5-million-year-old fossils that includes the first unambiguous Paranthropus boisei hand bones are reported in Nature. The findings offer insights into the evolution of hominin hands.

Link to the article in the comments.

10/17/2025

Long before industry, our ancestors faced toxic metals, including lead. This exposure may have shaped the evolution of human intelligence.

10/14/2025

In a 1970 National Geographic feature, paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey—son of Louis and Mary Leakey—recounted his discovery of a nearly complete Australopithecus boisei skull (now Paranthropus boisei), the same species his parents had found a decade earlier.

10/13/2025

By lamplight in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream, a young Jane Goodall filled her notebooks with stories of chimpanzees she had come to know by name — David Greybeard, Flo, and others. Unlike the detached methods of her time, Goodall treated her subjects as individuals with personalities and emotions.

Critics called it “unscientific.” But her mentor, Louis Leakey, recognized the brilliance of her work and secured her a place in a Cambridge PhD program — despite her lack of a college degree.

Goodall’s approach transformed primatology, proving that animals are not just data points, but beings with social bonds, feelings, and intelligence. Today, her legacy is not only scientific, but deeply human.

📸: Hugo van Lawick

10/13/2025

Skeleton of Lucy, the Australopithecus afarensis, besides an average 4 year old girl, circa 1974.

This photo juxtaposes the ancient and the modern: the fossilized remains of Lucy, a member of Australopithecus afarensis, standing beside a child from our own species.

Discovered in 1974 by Donald Johanson and his team in the Afar region of Ethiopia, ‘Lucy’ revolutionized our understanding of human evolution. Estimated to have lived 3.2 million years ago, she stood just over three and a half feet tall, about the same height as the girl beside her, but her anatomy told a story that bridged ape and human. Lucy walked upright, her pelvis and leg bones confirming bipedalism, yet her long arms and curved fingers hinted at an arboreal past.

For scientists and the public alike, Lucy became a symbol of discovery, proof that the path to humanity was gradual, complex, and deeply intertwined with the natural world.

Added Fact: Lucy’s scientific name, Australopithecus afarensis, means “southern ape of Afar.” She was named “Lucy” after the Beatles’ song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which was playing in camp the night she was found.

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