The Ancients - The Origins of Homo Sapiens

Episode Date: May 15, 2022

What do we know about the earliest hominins to exist? With a story spanning one million years and counting, we're discovering more about how we came to be every day. In this episode of The Ancients, we're on location in the Natural History Museum in London as Tristan covers a huge topic; the history of human evolution! Today's guest, Professor Chris Stringer, joins us as we delve into the origins of modern humans. As a leading expert in the creation of our species, Chris takes us through his research on the origins of Homo Sapiens. From Neanderthals, fossil evidence, and Mitochondrial Eve, to his findings on our genetic relationship with Africa.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts, and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And in today's podcast, well, we've covered some big topics on the Ancients the past and today I'm delighted to say we're covering another huge topic in the history of humanity, in the history of human evolution, because we're talking all about the origins of modern humans, the origins of Homo sapiens. And for this I was delighted a few days ago to head over to the Natural History Museum in London to interview the legendary Professor Chris Stringer. Chris has been working on the story of human evolution for decades. He is a

legend in this field. He knows so much and it was a pleasure to interview him in person all about this huge topic, the origins of Homo sapiens. You're going to absolutely love this one. Chris was an absolute joy to speak to. He even brought out a few replica skulls of various Homo species, including a Neanderthal skull replica. So without further ado, to talk all about the origins of Homo sapiens, the origins of our species, here's Chris. Europeans, the origins of our species. Here's Chris. Chris, it's great to have you on History Hit today. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Now, on the ancients, on History Hit, we've covered some huge topics in the past, but there aren't many topics that get bigger than this one, is it? The origins of modern humans, the origins of our species. That's right. Yes, it is a big topic, and it's one where we've had so many discoveries in the last few years. Well, you've got a few of these replicas out for us today, which we will no doubt talk about in due course. We are at the Natural History Museum today. And Chris, I mean, first of all,

the past era for research into looking at early humans and early modern humans, early hominins more generally, it's been a really exciting era for discoveries, hasn't it? Yes, it has. So we've had obviously wonderful new discoveries of actual fossils. We've had better dating of some of the fossils that already existed. And of course, really excitingly, at least for the later part of the record, we've got DNA added to the story for people like the Neanderthals and these people we discovered from DNA data, the Denisovans living over in East Asia. Well, you mentioned Neanderthals,

you mentioned Denisovans, we'll definitely talk about those. But I mean, first of all, regarding fossils and looking at fossils, what qualities, what features of a fossil are you looking at when you're trying to decide whether this fossil of an early homonym is an early modern human? Well, yes. So if we haven't got the DNA, we're left with what will fossilize. And that's obviously the bones and the teeth. So I've got here a replica of a modern human, recent human skull. And you can see some of the features that typify our species and things we can look for in the fossil record. So we've got a high and rounded brain case, and it's expanded up here at the back. We've got a small or non-existent brow ridge.

We've got a small face that's tucked under the brain case. Relatively small teeth. If we had the lower jaw, there'd be a nice chin on it, and here's an example of that on another fossil. We've got relatively large mastoid processes, even down to our ear bones. So we know from CT data we can look at the inner ear bones of fossils and we can see that even down at that level

we're distinct from people like the Neanderthals. And in the skeleton, if we have the skeleton of this individual, our skeleton is lightly built, so we're not highly muscled compared with some of these earlier humans. We've got a relatively narrow rib cage, we've got a relatively narrow pelvis, and joint surfaces are smaller. So even in the skeleton, we've got a whole suite of differences, and these are the things that we look for in fossils to mark the evolution of Homo sapiens. And the evolution of Homo sapiens, but of course Homo sapiens is just one of the Homo species, isn't it? So if we delve

into the background now in regards to the origins of modern humans, because what do we know going really far back about the earliest homonyms that we know of? Well, yes. So geneticists estimate that we had a common ancestor with our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, maybe 7 billion years ago. And for the first 5 million years of that period or so, human evolution took place only in Africa as far as we know. And then in the last two million years early humans started to spread from Africa to places like Asia and Europe. So we start to see fossils in those areas and of course evolution is still going on within Africa and we start to see a diversification. So for the earliest stages of human evolution,

we've got fossils in Africa that are close to 7 million years old. And some people think that these are actually on the human line. Other people are not so sure, because, of course, when you go back to that common ancestor with chimpanzees, it's not going to look very much like us, because we've had 7 million years of evolution, and it probably won't look much like a chimpanzee either, because the chimpanzees have had 7 million years of evolution and it probably won't look much like a chimpanzee either because the chimpanzees have had seven million years of evolution from that common ancestor.

Does it seem important to stress therefore that by the time we get to the origins of Homo sapiens, the emergence of modern humans, does there seem to be this rich diversity of different Homo species present in the world at that time? That's right, yes. So what we see now from the fossil evidence is a great diversity. At every level where we've got good evidence, we see there are a number of species coexisting. It's as though nature's experimenting in how to be human with all these different lineages. And so even 70,000 years ago, which is like yesterday, geologically speaking, there were at least five kinds of humans around on the Earth. So we were evolving in Africa and starting to emerge from there.

The Neanderthals, we've got an example of a replica Neanderthal here, they were evolving in Europe and Asia. Over in East Asia, we had these Denisovans, who we know about mostly from their DNA. And we also had on the islands of Southeast Asia two strange dwarf species, one of them nicknamed the Hobbit, Homo floresiensis, and one in the Philippines that we've only learned about in the last few years called Homo luzonensis. So that's at least five kinds of humans 70,000 years ago. Now there's only one. So all those other forms disappeared. As we go back in time, there's even more things like Homo hardibagensis and Homo naledi and so on. So it's a much more

complicated story than we used to think. Well, Chris, and there we go. There's the story of the prehistoric Bilbo Baggins, isn't it, at the same time? That's right. Yeah, we can cover that. All right. Well, let's delve into the big, big questions surrounding the origins of Homo sapiens now. When and where do we think Homo sapiens originated from? Well, the geneticists estimate we had a common ancestor with the Neanderthals and the Denisovans

maybe 600,000 years ago. And I don't think we know what that common ancestor looked like. I used to think it was this species Homo heidelbergensis, sometimes also called Homo rhodesiensis. So this is a replica of a fossil that was found in what's now Zambia, and it was found in 1921. It was the first important ancient human fossil ever found in Africa. Just to describe that skull which you're holding now, Chris, I mean, looking at it at first glance as a Joe Bloggs, it doesn't look that dissimilar from the skull

of a modern human. I mean, his eyes look bigger as well, but what are other key features of it? Yes, we can put them side by side, and you can see there that, you know, the brain case is much longer and lower. The forehead's much flatter. You've got this, as you said, great big brow ridge over the eyes. The face is bigger and it's pulled forwards more. The teeth are larger. When we look at the back of it, it's got this strong ridge of bone across here, an occipital torus and strongly angled, so that's a distinction. And when we've got the skeletons of these early humans, we see that they're very strongly built, very robust compared with our skeletons. So different from us, I would certainly say a different species, sometimes called Homo

heidelbergensis after a jawbone that was found in Germany in 1907. Other times, I think I'm switching over to using the name given to this fossil in 1921, which is Homo rhodesiensis, because that was the name given to what's now Zambia, was then northern Rhodesia, so Homo rhodesiensis. So this, I used to think, was a common ancestor of us Neanderthals. Now I think it's not because it's got some derived features that take it away from what we think the common ancestor was like, especially in the face. And also, we've directly dated this fossil and it's only about 300,000 years old. So it's too young to be the common ancestor of us Neanderthals.

And there are other fossils which certainly are closer to that position. There's a species we know from Spain called Homo antisessor, Pioneer Man. Now that material is 850,000 years old. It may be too old to be the common ancestor, but in the face, it actually looks closer to what we would predict the common ancestor of us and the Neanderthals look like. Even though, as you say, we don't think Homo heidelbergensis, I apologise if I butcher the name of that Homo species now, might not be the common ancestor. Is the theory that Homo sapiens emerged from Africa, the out of Africa theory, is still dominant? Yes. So if we go back to that common ancestor, maybe 600,000 years ago, I would say we're not even sure where it lived. So that common ancestor may have lived in Africa, may have lived in Europe even,

maybe lived in Western Asia, and then from there these different groups diversified and evolved. But after that time, yes, the evolution of Homo sapiens takes place in Africa, only in Africa as far as we know. Until we get to the last couple of hundred thousand years, we start to see sporadic signs of Homo sapiens emerging from Africa, but not surviving, not established long term. And then there's a major dispersal about 60,000 years ago. And that is the dispersal that really makes its mark and gives rise to humans today outside of Africa. So that 60,000 year event is the really important one in terms of modern human diversity outside of Africa.

And humans, of course, stay behind in Africa. So the out of Africa theory is, I prefer to call it the recent African origin model. I think that is still the dominant one. But whereas 20 years ago, I would have said, yeah, we're recent African origin, pretty well 100%, now I would say we're mostly, we're recent African origin, pretty well 100%. Now I would say we're mostly out of Africa because we do know even that story's got a bit more complicated. And why I don't use out of Africa as the sort of short term for it is because actually there were other out of Africas. So this species Homo erectus, most people think that that evolved in Africa more than two million years ago,

and it came out of Africa around two million years ago. So that's a very early out of Africa event. And there could have been more since then. There were probably some back to Africa events that we have a very poor picture of. And so there were actually a number of out of Africa events. The most recent one, the 60,000 year one, is the one that is the most important in terms of our story. And so recent African origin, I prefer to use that term for this model of an African origin for our species. We definitely can. It's amazing that there are these multiple people going out of Africa in prehistory,

in the distant, distant past. I mean, Chris, I'd love to focus in on a few examples of the earliest modern humans we know of from Africa now. And it seems one of these places in Africa where there seems to be a lot of discoveries in recent history is in the northeast, is in the area around Ethiopia. Now, what examples do we have from this part of Africa? Yes, important discoveries there, of course,

at various stages of human evolution. But for the Homo sapiens story, yes, some fossils were found in the late 1960s from Omo Kibish in southern Ethiopia, close to the border with Kenya. And one of them, Omo 1, is a partial skeleton with a reasonably complete cranium and jaw. And for me, that is probably the oldest fossil that has the features that I talked about for Homo sapiens. So it has a high and rounded brain case, a relatively small brow ridge, a chin on the lower jaw, pelvis that we've got suggests it's got a narrow pelvis. Now that

fossil has recently been dated to over 230,000 years old. So that is the oldest fossil that I would call a derived Homo sapiens, a fossil that shows the features of Homo sapiens today. When we go back further on the Homo sapiens line, we find fossils that have of Homo sapiens today. When we go back further on the Homo sapiens line, we find fossils that have some Homo sapiens features, but not the whole complex that we find today. And one of those is also from Homo kibish. There's a fossil called Homo kibish 2, found a few kilometres away from the site of Homo kibish 1. It's thought to be around the same age, but it's quite different. I don't have a replica to show you but in some ways it has Homo sapiens features like a small brow ridge but the back of the skull looks more like a Hydrobegensis or much more primitive. So Homo 2 I would call a basal Homo sapiens, one

that's closer to our common ancestor with the Neanderthals and Denisovans. So there's diversity in Africa and as we go back there's a site in Morocco called Jebel Ikhud, which is a cave site. And finds were made back in the 1960s. But recent work there has found more fossil material and dated it better. And that material is about 300,000 years old. So for me, that's a basal Homo sapiens, that group of fossils. And they show some Homo sapiens features in the face for example, in the teeth, but they still have the long low brain case that we find in these other species. So it's a kind of very early Homo sapiens closer to our common ancestor with the Neanderthals and Denisovans and therefore less like us because it's further back in time and less derived. It's interesting

how you've got these examples from Eastern Africa, you mentioned Omo there, and you just mentioned Morocco, so Northwest Africa. Do we also have examples from South Africa too? Yeah, so the South Africa story is interesting, and I think we still have a lot to learn about that. So there is a fossil from a site called Floresbad, thought to be about 260,000 years old, and that looks a little bit like those ones from Jebel Ehud. So similar in age maybe and similar in morphology, but also down in South Africa we've learned in the last 10 years that there's a much more primitive species down there around 300,000 years ago called Homo naledi. Now the remains of Homo naledi have been found deep in a cave system

not far from Johannesburg, and this is a much more primitive species. In some ways, it looks much more like fossils that are one or two million years old. And yet it's only 300,000 years old. So the skeletons, and there are partial skeletons from there, show a creature which was walking upright, well adapted to walking upright, with quite dexterous hands apparently. upright, well adapted to walking upright, with quite dexterous hands apparently, but when you look at the shoulders, when you look at some aspects of the hands, it looks like this creature was probably still climbing around in the trees as well. So, and it's got a small brain, it's only got basically the brain size about the size of a gorilla's brain. So even though this is only 300,000 years old, it seems to represent a much earlier stage of human evolution that has survived

in South Africa until quite recently and must have lived there. Just as Homo sapiens was evolving in the north of Africa, we had Heidelbergensis probably still in Zambia or Odysseansis. And there's this weird primitive species still around in southern Africa. So I think there's more to learn about that story down there. I think, Chris, it is so interesting. and I was literally about to repeat what you say, because I've got in my notes places like the Kalahari Basin, as well as Border Cave. These seem like areas where there might be future discoveries made in the years ahead that cast more light, put more light on this area of history.

I think so. I mean, the Naledi finds were a complete surprise. No one predicted there would be something so strange still there 300,000 years ago in a cave that was thought to have been quite well explored. But just in this deep little side chamber, very difficult to get into, they found this treasure trove of fossils, thousands of fossils of this Homo naledi. So that's an example of what can still turn up and surprise us. And for Africa as a whole, I would estimate we've only got fossil finds from maybe 10% of Africa. So Central and West Africa have produced virtually nothing of the early evolutionary Homo sapiens or Homo rhodesiensis. So who knows who was living there 300,000 or 500,000 years ago? We know people were there from stone tools, but we have no fossils to show what they look like.

So I think even the African story, we're getting good detail in some parts of Africa, but other parts are still a blank sheet and a lot still to learn about that. So we've covered case examples from the East, from the West, and from the South of Africa. Do you therefore think it's likely that Homo sapiens evolve in one or from one particular place or from many different places? Yeah, that's a difficult one to answer, of course, when, as I say, we've got evidence lacking from much of Africa. But I've certainly moved away from the position of thinking there was one area that was the most important. I used to think East Africa was the most important because that's where we had fossils like

Omo Kibish. But now I think I'm part of a group who developed an idea of a pan-African origin for Homo sapiens, that we didn't just evolve in one place. Some people have suggested from mitochondrial DNA that we evolved in southern Africa. Other people point to, you know, the white chromosome DNA suggesting we came from West Africa. But the reality is that it's a more complex origin. I think what we call Homo sapiens today is a kind of an amalgamation of different lineages in different parts of Africa that at times were evolving separately,

at other times when the climate's allowed it, they spread and they met and mixed and they exchanged genes and ideas. So we actually get a kind of complex web of interactions in Africa. Some of these populations become extinct when the climate turns against them. Others carry on. And so we finally get a merging of these groups in the last 100,000 years to become Homo sapiens as we know it today. Well then let's, you mentioned their DNA because I'd like to therefore talk a bit more about the science behind what you and your colleagues have been doing over the past few decades around this topic, the origins of modern humans.

And particularly this key paper from the late 20th century, that seems to be really important, the mitochondrial eve. Now, I hope I've said that right, because Chris, what is this? Why is it so significant? Yeah, so I think it was significant as representing a kind of turning point in the story about a recent African origin. So I and a few of us were developing the idea from the fossil record that we had an African origin maybe in the last 100,000 years, I would have said then. But there was probably a dominant view that Homo sapiens had evolved all over the world where ancient humans lived. This is called the multi-regional

model. So the multi-regional model said that, yes, in Europe, there was a line of evolution from the Neanderthals to Homo sapiens. In Africa, there will be a line of evolution from Heidelbergensis or Radiziensis to Homo sapiens. In China, Homo erectus would have evolved through to Homo sapiens. In Indonesia, Homo erectus would have evolved through to recent native Australian populations. So there was this view of a long-term evolution of Homo sapiens covering the best part of 2 million years.

So this evolution of Homo sapiens all over the world, but exchanging genes so they didn't speciate into different species, they remained Homo sapiens, but they evolved everywhere. Now, that was probably the dominant view in the early 1980s, but mitochondrial DNA came into the picture. So a group of scientists based in Berkeley in California studied the mitochondrial DNA of modern humans based on material from modern human females.

So mitochondrial DNA is inherited through mothers to daughters. So it's a female-inherited DNA. It's only a tiny bit of the genome. It's actually a separate bit of the genome. It's actually a separate bit of the genome. Mitochondria have their own bits of DNA. And so when you look at mitochondrial DNA in people today, you're tracing back a lineage of females into the past. So these scientists published a paper in Nature in 1987, arguing that if you took this DNA from around the world, mitochondrial DNA, it coalesced back to a single female individual, a single mother, if you like, for humanity. She's been nicknamed mitochondria leave. And she lived, on their estimate, about 200,000 years ago in Africa.

And so all of the mitochondrial diversity today will trace back to this woman. So I think it was great in terms of really changing the picture, because here was a completely independent line of evidence, nothing to do with fossils, that said we had a recent African origin. So it was very important it made the headlines all over the world. But in a sense, it was good and bad because it gave this strong signal of recent African origin. But of course, mitochondrial DNA is only a tiny bit of our whole genome. And to get the story of Homo sapiens origins, we, of course, need to look at all the rest of our DNA. And as we'll see later in this talk, that may give you a more complicated picture. And even the picture I've said already about just one area of Africa being important, some people have used the mitochondrial DNA data to say, yes, we can place modern human

origins in Southern Africa about 200,000 years ago, based on mitochondrial DNA. And others have argued that that's just one bit of the evidence. And when you look at the whole pattern, when you look at the fossils, the archaeology, and the rest of our genome, it's much more complicated. And Southern Africa could be part of our story, but it's certainly not the unique place where Homo sapiens originated. How can toilet training cows help save the planet? Should we start renting our clothes? And why on earth is Bez from the Happy Mondays now keeping bees? I'm Jimmy Doherty, TV presenter, farmer and conservationist and these are just a few of the questions we'll be answering on my new podcast on Jimmy's Farm

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Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Well Chris this is all really great so far and I know we've covered quite a lot of ground already so I hope you don't mind if you give us a quick a summary almost of what we've been talking about you know what we know today in may 2022 what do you think is most likely about the origins of homo sapiens given all this fossil evidence that we have also this dna evidence and all the research that's gone into it yeah so just to do the most simple story is that probably around 600 000 years ago there was a common ancestor for us and the neanderthals and Denisovans. And we don't know where it lived, but it gave rise to these different lineages. So in Europe and Asia it became the Neanderthals.

In Western Europe and in Western Asia it became the Neanderthals. Over in Eastern Asia it became the Denisovans. And in Africa it became Homo sapiens. So in Africa we then had the evolution of Homo sapiens, probably not just in one area, but sort of mixing and matching across Africa, and then finally coalescing to what we call Homo sapiens about 100,000 years ago. And then about 60,000 years ago, a major dispersal from Africa to give rise to the people we find today outside of Africa. Well, let's now focus therefore on this dispersal from out of Africa So what do we know about the nature of this dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa?

Well, yes, so it's known really from a reconstructed working backwards from the DNA today of people outside of Africa It coalesces to around 60,000 years ago. So it's thought that a small group of Homo sapiens got out of Northeast Africa into Western Asia and from there gradually dispersed to where we find Homo sapiens got out of northeast Africa into western Asia and from there gradually dispersed to where we find Homo sapiens today outside of Africa. And as I say, it wasn't the first movement of Homo sapiens out of Africa because we've got fossils of Homo sapiens, for example, in Israel that are maybe 120,000 years old at sites like Shkul and Kafse. But in a sense, it looks like they didn't go further with their dispersal,

or if they did, it didn't ultimately give rise to the populations we find today. There's even a fossil from Greece that's over 200,000 years old from a site called Epidema. Just the back of a skull, but the back of that skull looks very like a Homo sapiens, even though it's more than 200,000 years old. That again looks like, you could call it a foul dispersal, because there are Neanderthals that come back to the site afterwards. So there may have been these early attempts at dispersal by Homo sapiens,

but it's the one at 60,000 that is successful. But of course going out of Africa 60,000 years ago was going to take these Homo sapiens into the territory of these other humans who were already living outside of Africa. The Neanderthals and the Denisovans and of these other humans who are already living outside of Africa, the Neanderthals and the Denisovans and even these other species that were living down in Southeast Asia. So that's where we get the possibility of contact between these different forms of humans who've been largely evolving separately for hundreds of thousands of years. Well let's talk about these

interactions with these different types of humans then now and let's focus on the big one then, the Neanderthals. What do we know about Homo sapiens interactions with Neanderthals as they spread out of Africa? Yeah, so 20 years ago if you'd have interviewed me I'd have said well we in the Neanderthals were closely related, there could have been a bit of interbreeding because you know we know that modern mammal species that are closely related can interbreed. So jackals and wolves, brown bears and polar bears, many species of baboons in Africa can do a bit of interbreeding. Now I knew that was there but I thought well 40,000 years ago this wouldn't have been normal behavior. These were small populations they probably didn't meet each other

very often and then we've had 40,000 years since to lose any trace of the interbreeding. So I thought yes it could have happened but it's trivial in the big picture. We're never going to find evidence of it today. But in 2010, work started to appear that showed that clearly modern humans today have Neanderthal DNA in their genomes. So there was interbreeding, and you and I probably have around 2% Neanderthal DNA in our genomes from this interbreeding that happened between about 40, 40 and 60,000 years ago. And that's true for pretty well everyone living outside of Africa today has around that level of Neanderthal DNA in their genomes. So it happened. And the first view was it must have happened when we first came out of Africa in Western Asia. We now know it was happening in Europe. It was happening even across Asia. So there were multiple interbreeding events with the Neanderthals

contributing little bits of their DNA eventually to our genomes. To begin with, it would have been a high level. So here we've got a replica of a jawbone from Romania that's directly dated to about 40,000 years ago. Now that's the time when the Neanderthals were going extinct physically. Now this jawbone, it's got a nice chin on it, so it looks like a modern human jawbone, but people noted that it had unusual features in the teeth and a little feature here that you often find in Neanderthals. And what's that here? What's that little feature? It's a little foramen, just a little bridge across the bone here, which you find in about half of the Neanderthal fossils. That's right at the back of them. That's right, back of the jaw, inside the jawbone here.

So people were saying, well, it's got some strange features. Maybe it's got mixed features. Well, when its genome was analysed, it was found that it had around 9% of Neanderthal DNA. So that's the highest level known in any Homo sapiens fossil. And that suggests this individual had a Neanderthal ancestor within the previous four to six generations. So we're very close to that interbreeding with the Neanderthal ancestor within the previous four to six generations. So we're very close to that interbreeding with the Neanderthals in this fossil from Romania.

It's so interesting, you know, how in really recent research this has come to light. It must be one of the great, shall we say, discoveries, uncoverings of recent history looking into early humans? That's right, yeah. It is a very important discovery, and it shows that we are not purely recent African orogen. We're more than 90% in our genomes recent African orogen, but these extra little bits are added on from Neanderthals, from Denisovans. In Africa too, there are suggestions that there was some interbreeding even in Africa of these other pre-homo sapiens or alongside homo sapiens lineages, even though in Africa we're doing a little bit of interbreeding with homo sapiens. So it's a more complex story. We're mostly out of

Africa, mostly recent African origin. And of course, people are looking at what that DNA is doing. So even there's about 2%, as I say, in us, you know, most people outside of Africa today. And some of that DNA is active, so it seems to be active in our immune systems for example. And that's interesting because of course we, having evolved in Africa, coming out of Africa to live in Europe and Asia, we had no natural immunities to the local diseases and pathogens. The Neanderthals had evolved some of those natural defences, so by interbreeding with them we got a kind of quick fix to our immune system and picked up some of their natural defences. And that was good news 40 or 50,000 years ago. Now

it is also linked with some autoimmune diseases, so this even has medical importance. So it's kind of swings and roundabouts that this interbreeding can give you benefits in terms of picking up lost diversity it has benefits in picking up innovations in other lineages that they've evolved you can pick those up as well but of course when your genome integrates these bits of dna from other lineages they may or may not fit perfectly and it may be useful but it also may have some side effects which aren't so good. So it's a balancing act, really. And we now know that many closer-rooted mammal species do hybridise. And they do this. And this helps to increase the diversity and pick up, you know, innovations from other lineages.

But, of course, it may also have some less good effects in some individuals. So you mentioned Denisovans there. So what are the Denisovans and how do they relate to our Homo sapiens origin story? Yes, so of course we didn't know about Denisovans, you know, if I was talking to you more than 10 years ago in the Altai Mountains, they'd been digging there for more than 50 years and they'd found fragmentary human fossils. But apart from that the teeth were very large, it was impossible to say what species they were. And then DNA was recovered from some of these fossils, really high quality DNA. And what it showed was you had a different kind of human. You had a

human that was different from Neanderthal genomes and different from Homo sapiens genomes. And these became known as Denisovans. So from 2010, we've known about the Denisovans. They represent a distinct line of evolution over in Eastern Asia, one that probably branched off the Neanderthal line very early, probably more than 400,000 years ago. An early branch from the Neanderthal line and a diverse branch too. So these Denisophans we know even from Denisover Cave, they were there for at least 150,000 years. And remarkably, not only were they there, but at times the Neanderthals were there as well. So we actually have some fragmentary Neanderthal fossils from Denisovan Cave, and we have their DNA as well. And incredibly, we even have what seems to be a first generation

hybrid between a Neanderthal and a Denisovan. So there is a bit of fossil of a girl that lived there probably around 100,000 years ago, and she had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. So quite incredible. So not only were our ancestors interbreeding with Neanderthals, but the Denisovans were interbreeding with Neanderthals as well. And even more than that, once we had the Denisovan genome, geneticists started to look at genomes of modern people today, and they found chunks of Denisovan-like DNA in people today, particularly over in Southeast Asia and Australasia. So populations in the Philippines and Australasia, some of them have about 4% of DNA from a Denisovan-like ancestor, interbreeding maybe 40 or 50,000 years ago. That's in addition to having the 2% that they have from

Neanderthals from when Homo sapiens first came out of Africa. So it's really quite an amazing story. And it looks like Denisovan DNA is around also in mainland Asia. It's found in Native Americans as well. So that's been carried across into the Americas. And it looks like Denisovan DNA has come from separate interbreeding events by separate populations of Denisovans. So a lot of diversity. It looks like the Denisovans must have been widespread. They were not only up in Siberia, probably in China, we might get onto that later, but also they must have been down in Southeast Asia. So when modern humans dispersed through Southern Asia and through Southeast Asia, somewhere down there There was interbreeding with the Denisovan like population and then they took it with them when they colonized the Philippines and New Guinea and Australia

And so on that's insane how DNA is mentioned. You can see Neanderthal DNA. You can now see Denisovan DNA You mentioned we're going to China now and the Far East because is it a similar story with Homo erectus? and the Far East, because is it a similar story with Homo erectus? Yes, well Homo erectus of course is a more ancient species. So erectus was around in Africa around two million years ago, and this species ultimately is probably the ancestor of us and the Neanderthals. All of these later humans ultimately derive from erectus or something very like it. And erectus was a species that was long-lived and it was the first human that we know of that got out of Africa and into Asia certainly, possibly into Europe as well. It's not certain that erectus was in Europe but there were humans in Europe more than a million

years ago and it's not clear what species they were. But erectus was a long-lived species. We find its remains in Indonesia, in China. First remains of Erectus were found in Indonesia in the 1890s. So that species, as far as we know, is the longest-lived human species, and until Homo sapiens, the most widespread. Now, some people, and I'm one of them really, think that probably when we study these Erectus fossils in more detail using the latest techniques, sadly probably not going to include ancient DNA, but there's also a parallel method that looks at fossil proteins called proteomics. And that method might be applicable to Homo erectus fossil. So I think

erectus probably had great diversity and probably actually when we study it in detail, we'll find that there are more species. So some people have got the name Homo agaster that they use for the earliest erectus fossils that we find in Africa and some people use it also for fossils found in Georgia in the Caucasus. So these are ones that are over one and a half million years old. So a primitive erectus sometimes given a different name Homo agaster. I don't think that division works very well but I think probably if we look at those earliest African and Georgian erectuses they will eventually turn out to be different from the ones we find in China and Java at a much later date. An erectus seems to go on a long time in

places like Indonesia probably down to a hundred thousand years ago possibly even younger so it's even possible that Erectus was still surviving there when Homo sapiens moved through the region, but that's not clear. The youngest Erectuses in Java are probably 100,000 years old. In China, we think Erectus may have disappeared about 300,000 years ago, but again, that's not really clear. Well, let's talk about one other species before we really start wrapping up we've got to talk about the prehistoric bilbo baggins of course now homo florenciensis i might have once gone wrong homo florenciensis what is this species and how can that species potentially relate to our origin story well i think it's still a very mysterious species

it's a remarkable find so So this was published in 2004. And again, it was a great surprise for pretty well everyone that on the island of Flores, which is beyond where we thought ancient humans ever got because they didn't have boats. So this is an island, quite a remote island, beyond Bali, sort of heading towards Australia. So this island, there were claims that humans were there from stone tools, but these were disputed.

Early humans were there. And then these fossils were found and published in 2004 of what seemed to be a dwarf species of human. So really a small stature, just over a meter tall. There's a reasonably preserved skeleton with a cranium, small brained, brained about the size of a chimpanzee, very human teeth, but no sign of a chin, a brow ridge over the eyes, and a skeleton that had a mixture of features that we expect in humans are walking upright but in the feet in the hands in

details it seemed much more primitive it was really much more like in some ways fossils that are two million years old than ones that are well we now know 60 000 years old some of these fossils so as modern humans were coming out of af Africa this strange species was still surviving probably having evolved there on Flores for over a million years because Flores has got stone tools over a million years old and there were even fragmentary fossils about 700,000 years old which looked like the ones that we find later on of Homo floresiensis. So a long deep lineage evolving separately in isolation

for a long period of time, and then going extinct. And that's one of the questions, of course, is why are these other human species going extinct around this time? But that's so interesting that you actually mentioned there around tools, because it might seem obvious to you, but to many people, myself included, you might get the mistaken impression that Homo sapiens are the ones with tools and stone tools and the like but there are many previous many other types of hominins that were able to use tools long before homo sapiens yeah that's right yes i mean we are a tool using human and tool making human but this is something that's been around for over two million years so we know that

something was making stone tools in africa more than two and a half million years ago And this is even earlier than some of the earliest homo fossils So it's likely that this earlier stage of humans that the australopithecine the southern ape phase in Africa Some of those creatures which in many ways were ape-like in terms of their brain size They were probably already using and making tools Fairly basic because at that stage and things like wood that would have been used but of course pretty well all the evidence has disappeared. So what survives are stone tools but they're certainly there more than two million

years ago in Africa. We may find them around butchered remains suggesting that these stone tools have been used to butcher animal carcasses, to cut off the meat, break open bones to get the marrow. So that's something that's there over two million years ago. And so by the time we get to the Neanderthals and us, we're talking about very sophisticated tool makers and tool users. So much more complex technology, specialised tools for cutting meat, for cutting wood, for breaking open bones, for processing skins, things like that. We get quite specialised tools. Chris, this is all so, so interesting. I could ask questions for hours about this, literally,

but we're going to have to start wrapping up now. I mean, a last kind of question and statement. It's absolutely extraordinary for what you've been saying about the progress, the advancements that have been made over the last 30, 40 years, a really exciting era for looking at the origins of Homo sapiens and other homonyms. But from what you've also been saying, these new discoveries, new DNA research, even to this day, it's really exciting for the future, isn't it? When we're starting to learn even more, we're going to find even more discoveries shedding new light on this very distant but important part of our past. Yes, absolutely. I mean, we've had important discoveries and those are going to continue. And as I mentioned, there are these empty spaces on the map. So large parts

of Africa, we'd know human fossils for this time period. The Indian subcontinent with only one significant human fossil from that whole area. So many parts of the world still yield important evidence, DNA data to come. I mentioned this method of proteomics, where we can look at fossil proteins, which have a longer-term survival than DNA. And that method is going to be increasingly applied to these fossils. And that will help us also relate these fossils to each other. Better dating techniques, of course.

So all of this, I think, we can look forward to a very rich story still to come. More complexity, but also probably sorting out some of these questions that I've raised that are still doubtful. So where did Homo florescensis evolve from? We don't know that. Where was the common ancestor of us in Neanderthals living? We don't know that now. We may get discoveries, I hope we'll get discoveries that will help us home in on those. And also, what did the Denisovans look like? We haven't talked much about that. But the Denisovans, of course, are known from fragmentary fossils. There is a jawbone from China that's thought to be Denisovan. But somewhere in China, I'm sure there are some much more complete fossils than the Denisovans.

And so that's something that we can look forward to for the future. Well, China seems to be this key place, doesn't it? You mentioned just before we started recording Dragon Man, this new discovery, which also seems to seize the world and its importance. Yes, yes. It's a fantastic, it's a beautifully preserved fossil, over 150,000 years old, and it seems to represent, for me, a distinct species living in China. I'm calling it Homo Daliensis. And of course, people are saying, well, that's a Denisovan. For me, that's not yet resolved. It may well be a Denisovan, but we have to demonstrate that scientifically. Well, Chris, this has been absolutely awesome. And it just goes for me to say, thank you so much for taking the time to have to demonstrate that scientifically. Well, Chris, this has been

absolutely awesome. And it just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to talk to History Hit today. I've enjoyed it very much. Thank you. Well, there you go. There was the Natural History Museum's Professor Chris Stringer talking us through the story of the origins of Homo sapiens of modern humans and a bit more too i love that talking about neanderthals about denisovans and also of course about that bilbo baggins homo species forgive me i cannot pronounce the name correctly here so i'm not going to try that was a really fun episode to record in person so i really do hope you enjoyed it now last but certainly not least you've heard me say

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