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The Tangled Tree

Wednesday, 12 November 2025 02:46

Summary

Recent breakthroughs in palaeontology, anthropology, and archaeology are fundamentally altering the established timelines of human and planetary evolution. New evidence from Kenya’s Turkana Basin reveals that early hominins maintained a sophisticated stone tool tradition for nearly 300,000 years, anchoring their survival through extreme climate shifts. Simultaneously, the re-analysis of a million-year-old skull from China suggests the Homo lineage may have diverged far earlier than previously thought, challenging the long-held 'Out of Africa' model as the sole narrative of human origins. The evolutionary timeline of life itself is also being pushed back, with fungi now believed to have emerged up to 1.4 billion years ago, acting as Earth’s first ecosystem engineers. Furthermore, the application of artificial intelligence has allowed scholars to reconstruct a 3,000-year-old Babylonian hymn, while archaeological sites in Peru and Jordan offer new insights into how ancient civilisations adapted to climate catastrophe and managed complex social structures.

The Deepening Roots of Hominin Technology and Coexistence

The narrative of human evolution has long been depicted as a linear progression, a straight march from ape-like ancestors to modern *Homo sapiens* [Ref: 1.14, 1.20]. However, new fossil and archaeological evidence from East Africa is reinforcing the view of a 'bushy' evolutionary tree, where multiple hominin species coexisted and competed across vast stretches of time [Ref: 1.10, 1.14, 1.20]. At the Ledi-Geraru site in Ethiopia, a team of international scientists uncovered fossils dating between 2.6 and 2.8 million years ago [Ref: 1.14, 1.20]. These finds confirm that the genus *Homo* was present at 2.8 million years ago, solidifying the antiquity of the human lineage [Ref: 1.10]. Crucially, the research also revealed that early members of *Homo* lived side-by-side with a newly identified species of *Australopithecus* [Ref: 1.14, 1.20]. This new *Australopithecus* species is distinct from the well-known *Australopithecus afarensis* (the famous ‘Lucy’), which last appears in the fossil record at approximately 2.95 million years ago [Ref: 1.20]. The presence of two hominin species in the same location at the same time challenges the older, simpler model of a single evolutionary ladder [Ref: 1.14, 1.20]. Instead, the evidence suggests that nature experimented with multiple versions of ‘being human’ before the lineage that led to modern humans ultimately endured [Ref: 1.20]. The Ledi-Geraru site has also yielded the earliest Oldowan stone tools on the planet [Ref: 1.14]. Further south, in Kenya’s Turkana Basin, a site known as Namorotukunan has provided astonishing evidence of a long-lived technological tradition [Ref: 1.2, 1.3, 1.11]. Researchers uncovered Oldowan stone tool assemblages dating between 2.75 and 2.44 million years ago [Ref: 1.2, 1.3, 1.11]. This 300,000-year period was marked by extreme climate instability, including constant wildfires, severe droughts, and dramatic shifts in the environment [Ref: 1.2, 1.3]. Despite these environmental pressures, the craft of toolmaking remained remarkably consistent across generations [Ref: 1.2, 1.3]. The hominins who created these tools demonstrated an acute understanding of rock mechanics, preferentially selecting fine-grained materials like chalcedony and jasper that produce predictable fracture patterns and sharp cutting edges [Ref: 1.11]. The analysis of flaking angles and striking platforms indicates that the toolmakers understood the fundamental principles of fracture mechanics [Ref: 1.11]. Sharp-edged flakes and fragments comprised between 79.4 and 94.2 per cent of the assemblages, confirming that the primary technological focus was the production of cutting edges [Ref: 1.11]. Butchery marks identified on bone specimens within the 2.58 million-year-old assemblage demonstrate that hominins used these sharp-edged tools to extract meat from large mammalian carcasses [Ref: 1.11]. This dietary innovation provided a critical survival advantage during periods of environmental stress, suggesting that the enduring nature of the stone tool technology was key to the hominins’ adaptation and survival [Ref: 1.2, 1.11]. The finds at Namorotukunan hint that the start of the Oldowan technology is older than previously thought, and the tools have been described by researchers as the first multi-purpose ‘Swiss Army knives’ made by hominins [Ref: 1.3].

The Asian Question in Human Evolution

While Africa remains the undisputed cradle of humanity, new findings from East Asia are forcing a re-evaluation of the timeline and geography of the *Homo* genus’s divergence [Ref: 1.18, 1.21]. The re-analysis of a crushed skull, known as Yunxian 2, discovered in China’s Hubei Province in 1990, has the potential to resolve the longstanding ‘Muddle in the Middle’ of human evolution [Ref: 1.18, 1.19]. The skull, which is between 940,000 and 1.1 million years old, was previously classified as belonging to *Homo erectus* [Ref: 1.18, 1.19]. However, modern reconstruction technologies, including advanced CT scanning and virtual modelling, revealed features closer to species previously thought to have existed only later in human evolution, such as the recently discovered *Homo longi* (Dragon Man) and even our own species, *Homo sapiens* [Ref: 1.18, 1.21]. The digital reconstruction suggests that the skull may be the oldest-known member of the evolutionary lineage that includes the Denisovans, an extinct subspecies of archaic humans [Ref: 1.19]. This repositioning of Yunxian 2 suggests that the split between our own ancestors, Neanderthals, and *Homo longi* may have occurred at least 400,000 years earlier than previously believed [Ref: 1.21]. The new study indicates that the common ancestry could date back as far as 1.32 million years [Ref: 1.19]. If the findings are correct, it suggests that by one million years ago, human ancestors had already split into distinct groups, pointing to a much earlier and more complex human evolutionary split [Ref: 1.18]. This discovery raises the possibility that *Homo sapiens* may have begun to emerge half a million years earlier than previously thought, and it also challenges the assumption that early humans dispersed solely from Africa [Ref: 1.8, 1.18, 1.21]. The research suggests that East Asia played a key and much earlier role in hominin evolution than was traditionally accepted [Ref: 1.18]. The debate over the identity of another ancient hominin, *Paranthropus robustus*, has also been advanced through the use of ancient protein analysis on two million-year-old teeth [Ref: 1.4, 1.7]. This powerful, big-jawed cousin of early humans continues to intrigue scientists, and the new analysis has cracked open secrets hidden within its ancient proteins [Ref: 1.4, 1.7].

The Billion-Year Pioneers of Life on Land

The timeline for the colonisation of land by complex life forms is being dramatically revised, with new research placing the emergence of fungi hundreds of millions of years before plants [Ref: 1.22, 1.23, 1.26]. Fungi’s evolutionary roots stretch far deeper than once believed, with an international group of scientists concluding that these organisms first appeared between 900 million and 1.4 billion years ago [Ref: 1.23, 1.26]. This timing means that fungi, a kingdom that includes mushrooms, moulds, and yeasts, predate animals (thought to have arisen about 600 million years ago) and multicellular land plants (around 500 million years ago) [Ref: 1.23]. The findings, made possible through advanced molecular dating and new evolutionary models, suggest that fungi were thriving on Earth hundreds of millions of years before plants began to grow [Ref: 1.23]. The analysis indicates that the common ancestor of living fungi dates to roughly 1.4 to 0.9 billion years ago [Ref: 1.22]. Far from being silent background players, these ancient fungi are now understood to have been ecosystem engineers that fundamentally altered the course of life’s history [Ref: 1.22, 1.23]. They may have partnered with algae, recycling nutrients, breaking down rock, and creating primitive soils, thereby preparing Earth’s surface for the eventual emergence of plants [Ref: 1.22, 1.23, 1.26]. The research also suggests that certain fungi had enzymes capable of dissolving pectin, a sugar component of plant cell walls, dating back between 1.2 billion and 800 million years ago [Ref: 1.26]. This capability implies that fungi may have been interacting with algae-like organisms long before plants successfully colonised the land [Ref: 1.26]. In a separate discovery concerning deep time biology, fossil evidence has revealed that spionid worms, which are parasites of modern oysters, were already infecting bivalves 480 million years ago [Ref: 1.17]. High-resolution scans of the ancient bivalves revealed the distinctive traces left by the worms, demonstrating the remarkable antiquity of host-parasite relationships [Ref: 1.17]. The study of ancient trace fossils has also pushed back the timeline for the Cambrian explosion, suggesting that complex, mobile organisms with segmented bodies and muscle systems were thriving 545 million years ago, well before the traditionally accepted period [Ref: 1.25].

Echoes of Ancient Civilisations

Archaeological investigations in the Middle East and the Americas are providing new context for how ancient societies managed trade, religion, and environmental collapse [Ref: 1.27, 1.29]. In Peru’s mysterious Pisco Valley, the purpose of the thousands of perfectly aligned circular depressions known as Monte Sierpe, or the ‘Band of Holes,’ has long puzzled scientists [Ref: 1.27]. New research combining high-resolution drone mapping and microbotanical analysis suggests that the holes may have first served as a bustling pre-Inca barter market [Ref: 1.27]. Soil samples from the depressions contained traces of maize (corn) and reeds traditionally used for weaving baskets, indicating that ancient people placed plant materials into the holes, possibly using woven containers for transport [Ref: 1.27]. Later, under the Inca Empire, the site may have evolved into a sophisticated accounting and tribute system used to manage resources and record exchanges across the empire [Ref: 1.27]. The findings suggest that the ‘Band of Holes’ was an ancient market and accounting system that linked people, goods, and the empire [Ref: 1.27]. Further north in Peru, the Caral civilisation, the oldest known society in the Americas, has provided new evidence of resilience in the face of climate catastrophe [Ref: 1.29]. Around 4,200 years ago, a severe drought, coinciding with a global event known as the 4.2-kiloyear event, forced the population to leave the ancient city of Caral [Ref: 1.28, 1.29]. Archaeologists found that the people of Caral adapted and survived this crisis without resorting to violence, resettling in new locations like Vichama and Peñico [Ref: 1.29]. At the new settlements, they left behind intriguing friezes, including reliefs depicting squalid individuals with empty stomachs, as a message for future generations [Ref: 1.28, 1.29]. The evidence suggests that the organisation of the society was based on a political-ideological structure, with an absence of objects that leave evidence of violence [Ref: 1.29]. Meanwhile, in Jordan, a 5,500-year-old site in Murayghat has revealed secrets about a lost civilisation [Ref: 1.4, 1.7]. After the collapse of the Chalcolithic culture around 3500 BCE, the people in the region transformed their way of life, shifting from domestic settlements to ritual landscapes filled with megalithic structures [Ref: 1.4, 1.7]. The site offers a glimpse into the profound cultural and societal changes that followed a major civilisational collapse [Ref: 1.4, 1.7].

Artificial Intelligence and the Voice of Antiquity

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) is opening new frontiers in archaeology, allowing scholars to recover voices and texts that have been silent for millennia [Ref: 1.9, 1.16]. In a striking collaboration between the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the University of Baghdad, researchers used AI to reconstruct a long-lost Babylonian hymn [Ref: 1.5, 1.9, 1.16]. The hymn, which dates back to the early first millennium BCE (c. 1000 BCE), celebrates the grandeur of ancient Babylon [Ref: 1.5, 1.13, 1.16]. The text was pieced together from over 30 fragmented clay tablets that were scattered across several museums and collections [Ref: 1.5, 1.15]. The project utilised an AI-powered platform called the Electronic Babylonian Library (eBL) that digitises fragments of cuneiform and cross-references them to identify matching passages [Ref: 1.5, 1.15, 1.16]. This process, which would have taken human scholars decades, was completed in a fraction of the time using the AI-supported platform [Ref: 1.5, 1.16]. The reconstructed hymn, totalling over 250 lines, offers a vivid glimpse into the soul of the ancient city [Ref: 1.9, 1.13, 1.15]. It praises Babylon’s majestic architecture, the fertile fields sustained by the Euphrates River, and the cultural importance of women serving as priestesses [Ref: 1.5, 1.9, 1.13]. The text portrays Babylon as a welcoming place for foreigners and a city that ‘flourishes in her charms like a fruit garden’ [Ref: 1.9]. Scholars realised they had found a classic text, as the hymn survives in at least 20 cuneiform manuscripts copied between the seventh and second centuries B.C.E., suggesting it was very popular at the time [Ref: 1.9]. Notably, many copies were found among what appeared to be school texts, indicating that the hymn was memorised and taught to students [Ref: 1.5, 1.13]. The AI-assisted reconstruction has restored roughly two-thirds of the original composition, providing a powerful example of how digital tools can unlock long-lost literary traditions and reshape our understanding of ancient cultural life [Ref: 1.9, 1.15, 1.16].

Conclusion

The cumulative weight of recent paleontological and archaeological discoveries is forcing a profound re-evaluation of the deep past, from the origins of life on Earth to the emergence of human civilisation [Ref: 1.14, 1.23]. The evolutionary story of hominins is no longer a simple, linear narrative but a complex, branching tree where multiple species, including early *Homo* and a new *Australopithecus* species, coexisted in Africa nearly three million years ago [Ref: 1.14, 1.20]. This complexity is further compounded by the million-year-old Yunxian 2 skull, which suggests a much earlier divergence of the human lineage and a significant, underappreciated role for East Asia in our evolutionary history [Ref: 1.18, 1.21]. Beyond the human story, the planet’s biological timeline is being stretched back by hundreds of millions of years, with fungi now recognised as billion-year-old ecosystem engineers that prepared the terrestrial environment for all subsequent life [Ref: 1.22, 1.23]. Meanwhile, the application of advanced technology, from drone mapping in Peru to AI-powered cuneiform analysis in Mesopotamia, is providing unprecedented clarity on the social and cultural resilience of ancient civilisations [Ref: 1.16, 1.27, 1.29]. These findings collectively demonstrate that the past is far more intricate and dynamic than previously imagined, confirming that the work of rewriting the history of life and humanity is a continuous, evolving process.

References

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    Supports the facts about the 2.7-million-year-old Oldowan tools in Kenya, their consistency, and their role in early human adaptation and survival through climate swings.

  2. Human Tools Found From a Tumultuous Period 2.7 Million Years Ago | Mind Matters

    Provides additional context on the 2.75–2.44 million-year-old tools in the Turkana Basin, calling them the 'first multi-purpose Swiss Army knives' and detailing the environmental context.

  3. Archaeology News - ScienceDaily

    Cites the 5,500-year-old site in Jordan (Murayghat) and the shift to ritual landscapes after the Chalcolithic collapse, and mentions the Paranthropus robustus protein analysis.

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    Details the AI-assisted reconstruction of the 250-line Babylonian hymn from 30 fragmented clay tablets, its dating (c. 1000 BCE), and its content (architecture, agriculture, priestesses).

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    Supports the fact about the Paranthropus robustus protein analysis on 2 million-year-old teeth.

  6. Breaking News - ScienceDaily

    Supports the fact about the 5,500-year-old site in Jordan (Murayghat) and the shift to ritual landscapes.

  7. Million-year-old skull challenges history of human evolution | Semafor

    Supports the claim that the million-year-old skull from China could rewrite human evolution history and suggests Homo sapiens may have emerged half a million years earlier.

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    Provides details on the AI platform (Electronic Babylonian Library), the number of fragments (30), the total lines (250), and the hymn's content (Marduk, Euphrates, welcoming nature, school texts).

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  11. Anthropology News - ScienceDaily

    Supports the general concept of a 'tangled, branching tree' of human evolution and the coexistence of species.

  12. AI Unlocks Lost Babylonian Text Hidden For 3,000 Years - Indian Defence Review

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    Details the Ledi-Geraru Research Project, the coexistence of *Australopithecus* and the oldest *Homo* specimens between 2.6 and 2.8 million years ago, and the challenge to the linear evolution model.

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    Confirms the use of the Electronic Babylonian Library, the reconstruction of most of the 250 lines, and the hymn's content (praising architecture, Euphrates, and cultural life).

  15. Plants & Animals News - ScienceDaily

    Supports the facts about the ancient origins of fungi (up to 1.4 billion years ago) and the 480 million-year-old fossil evidence of spionid worms (oyster parasites).

  16. Million-year-old skull could change human evolution timeline - The Standard (HK)

    Details the Yunxian 2 skull re-analysis, its dating (1 million years old), the shift from *Homo erectus* to features closer to *Homo longi* and *Homo sapiens*, and the suggestion of an earlier, more complex split in East Asia.

  17. Timeline of Human Evolution Now in Question Thanks to Unearthed Skull Found in China

    Confirms the Yunxian 2 skull's age (940,000 to 1.1 million years old), its link to the Denisovan lineage, and the potential shift of the common ancestor split to 1.32 million years ago.

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    Reinforces the 'bushy tree' model of human evolution, the coexistence of *Australopithecus* and *Homo* at Ledi-Geraru (2.6-2.8 million years ago), and the discovery of a new *Australopithecus* species.

  19. Stunning New Discovery Completely Rewrites Human Evolution - YouTube

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    Details the new timeline for fungi (nearly a billion years earlier than expected), their role as ecosystem engineers, and the dating of the common ancestor of living fungi (1.4-0.9 billion years ago).

  21. Before plants or animals, fungi conquered Earth's surface - ScienceDaily

    Confirms the dating of fungi's first appearance (900 million and 1.4 billion years ago), their role in shaping first soils, and that they predate animals and multicellular land plants.

  22. Fungus News - ScienceDaily

    Supports the fact about fungi's evolutionary roots stretching back up to 1.4 billion years ago.

  23. Fungi's ancient origins: How they shaped life on Earth a billion years ago

    Provides details on the divergence between fungi and their closest relatives (1.5 billion years ago) and the presence of pectin-dissolving enzymes (1.2 billion and 800 million years ago) suggesting early interactions with plant ancestors.

  24. These 545-million-year-old fossil trails just rewrote the story of evolution | ScienceDaily

    Supports the fact about the 545 million-year-old trace fossils suggesting complex, mobile organisms existed well before the traditionally accepted Cambrian explosion timeline.

  25. Archaeologists may have finally solved Peru's strange “Band of Holes” mystery

    Details the Monte Sierpe ('Band of Holes') mystery in Peru's Pisco Valley, the new theory of it being a pre-Inca barter market and later an Inca accounting system, and the evidence of maize and reeds.

  26. Facing multiple threats, Peruvian archaeologists remain determined to research the Americas' oldest known civilisation - The Art Newspaper

    Mentions the Caral civilisation, the 4.2-kiloyear event, and the friezes at Vichama depicting starving individuals.

  27. Archaeologists discover how oldest American civilisation survived a climate catastrophe | Archaeology | The Guardian

    Details how the Caral civilisation survived the climate catastrophe (drought) without violence, resettling at Vichama and Peñico, and leaving behind famine friezes as a message.