A 2-million-year-old ancestor steps out of the dark

In a South African quarry in the Cradle of Humankind, archaeologists have described 18 long-unpublished fossils — and the star is DNH 127, the first adult Homo erectus ever found at the site, dated to 2 million years ago. That's 200,000 years older than any other adult of the species, and it confirms our ancestors were walking southern Africa at the very dawn of the species. The same study found their neighbors, the Paranthropus robustus, were evolving bigger teeth and chewing muscles under climate pressure — adaptation in real time, written in bone.