When did something like us first appear on the planet? It turns out there is remarkably little agreement on this question.
Fossils and DNA suggest people looking like us, anatomically modern Homo sapiens, evolved around 300,000 years ago. Surprisingly, archaeology – tools, artefacts and cave art – suggest that complex technology and cultures, “behavioural modernity”, evolved more recently around 50,000-65,000 years ago.
Some scientists interpret this as suggesting the earliest Homo sapiens were not entirely modern. Yet the different data tracks different things. Skulls and genes tell us about brains, artefacts about culture. Our brains probably became modern before our cultures.
The great leap
For 200,000-300,000 years…