Kamilla Rakhimova

Key Findings The results of our major attempt to map the earliest specimens of Homo sapiens, belonging to the genus, have been published

Although there is a remarkable amount of material on which all modern H. sapiens could (legally) be placed, a particular branch of the family (H. erectus) is poorly known

It is hoped that these maps will serve as a key guide for future researchers to make further study of the evolution and morphology of the H. erectus hypothesis

Let us hope we are wrong, however. Despite having such good evidence to support its findings, we should be sceptical. Modern Homo sapiens can be placed with near certainty on some branches of the Homo erectus family tree, but the family structure in terms of sub-families as well as major lineages with which it has evidence differ from that envisaged by the model. This suggests that we may be dealing with a full-blown research project from the beginning (as opposed to a narrow-brush based study that keeps to the oldest time samples used to back up the findings, but uses out dated specimens as if they were the ones that confirm its results)

Homo erectus is thought to be the ancestor of all modern human beings, and a full exploration of its biogeography is beyond the scope of this Special Report. For a summary of major theories based on DNA sequencing, please see the following papers:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12747

https://www.atmmission.com/resources/pdfs/AP-2018.pdf

In this Special Report, I will explain precisely why I find the model of research so much more feasible than the ‘eureka’ moment when all the things that came as a result of such research were labelled and published. This is a view that I hold with the same level of conviction that I hold when I do fossil-finding myself – because I am far more deeply entranced by what I see as the grand design of our human family tree, with all our branches deep within the ancestral branch of ourselves that is H. sapiens.