Pathways to Discovery

The fossil evidence is the bedrock of human evolution and human origins science—the bones, stone tools, and artifacts that can be dated and placed at a point of discovery and places the artifact within a context of human development.

From skeletons to teeth, early human fossils have been found of more than 6,000 individuals. With the rapid pace of new discoveries every year, this impressive sample means that even though some early human species are only represented by one or a few fossils, others are represented by thousands of fossils.

A changing climate affected human evolution during the past seven million years. How did the climate change? What plants and animals were living during each period? What did our human ancestors and animas eat and how did their diets change? How did that affect the growth patterns of teeth, skulls, skeletal composition, and ultimately, the development of individuals of these ancestors?

Studying how chimpanzees, baboons, gorillas, and other primates interact with each other can inform our understanding of how our earliest ancestors may have cooperated, joined or competed with and against each other, or competed for territory or resources. Conservation of the places where these primates live is an important aspect of this research to preserve their habitat for the future.

As the genetic library of human and primate genomes build, scientists can now build genetic migratory patterns, based on how genes have flowed throughout the ancient world. In addition, nonhuman primate genomes can be investigated to compare with climate and environmental conditions, disease, and evolutionary patterns of our earliest human ancestors.