Aztec altar with human remains discovered in Mexico City 3:12
(CNN) ––
The history of humans –– where we come from and how we evolved–– wrote a new chapter in 2021 with multiple discoveries.
Thanks to new fossil finds and analysis of ancient DNA preserved in teeth, bones, and cave soil, scientists have come up with surprising revelations about our ancestors Homo sapiens and other humans that existed before.
And, in some cases, with us.
Here are 6 of this year's most groundbreaking discoveries about human prehistory, which have shaped the family tree in fascinating and unexpected ways.
The first humans in America
The footprints are believed to have been made by children.
Footprints in the muddy dirt at the edge of a wetland in what is now New Mexico appear to be from yesterday.
But it's not like that.
The discovery that the tracks have been marked in the ground between 21,000 and 23,000 years drastically set back the chronology of humans in the Americas, the last continent to be colonized by the species.
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Humans arrived in America earlier than expected 0:47
Until recently, the general opinion was that people were venturing into North America from Asia.
Where?
Across Beringia, a land bridge that once linked the two continents, at the end of the Ice Age about 13,000 years ago.
But the footprints, believed to have been left by children, correspond to a time when many scientists think that massive ice sheets sealed off the passage of humans to North America.
Which indicates that humans were there even before.
The "dragon man", one of the key discoveries for humans
The "dragon man" is the newest addition to the human family tree.
A skull, which was hidden at the bottom of a well in northeast China for more than 80 years, is considered the most important fossil discovery in 50 years.
Precisely, it could represent a completely new type of human being.
Meet the "dragon man", who could belong to a different species of primitive human
This well-preserved skull, found in the Chinese city of Harbin, is between 138,000 and 309,000 years old, according to a geochemical analysis.
It combines primitive features, such as a broad nose and low eyebrows and a pronounced skull, with those that are most similar to Homo sapiens, including flat, delicate cheekbones.
The researchers named the new hominid Homo longi, which is derived from Heilongjiang, or the Black Dragon River: the province where the skull was discovered.
Colloquially, he has been known as the "dragon man" since the find was made public in June.
The hope is to extract DNA or other genetic material from the fossil to find out more about the "dragon man."
Especially if it can be a representative of the Denisovans, a little-known and enigmatic human population.
Look forward to development in 2022.
Grime in the cave
For centuries, archaeologists have searched caves for teeth, bones, and tools in hopes of reconstructing how our ancestors lived and looked like.
Now, new techniques for capturing DNA preserved in cave sediment allow scientists to learn about our first relatives without having to find fossils - just the land of the caves where they spent time.
The ancient DNA of a teenage girl reveals a human group unknown until now
In 2021, human nuclear DNA, which contains more detailed information than mitochondrial DNA, was extracted from the earth of a cave for the first time.
And it revealed details about the life of Neanderthals.
Similar techniques are shedding light on extinct animals like woolly mammoths.
In fact,
Science
magazine
named it one of its breakthroughs in 2021.
"Detecting sediments for DNA is a turning point for us. It will direct us to the right places, save us time and a lot of money," said Katerina Douka, assistant professor of archaeological science in the University's Department of Evolutionary Anthropology. from Vienna and associate researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany.
Possible new human lineage discovered in Indonesia 0:50
Very, very, very old fashion
In "The Flintstones", Pedro and Betty are dressed in furs.
But, the archaeological evidence of what our Stone Age ancestors actually wore and how they made their clothes is very little.
Skin, leather, and other organic materials are generally not preserved.
Especially if they are more than 100,000 years old.
When did humans start wearing clothes?
A discovery in a Moroccan cave could illuminate the question
However, the researchers say that 62 bone tools used to process and soften animal skins, which were found in a cave in Morocco, may be some of the first indirect evidence of clothing in the archaeological record.
The tools are between 90,000 and 120,000 years old and were used to work leather.
Specifically to remove connective tissue.
Some leather workers still use similar bone tools today.
Neanderthal brains
Neanderthalized brain organoids (left) look very different from modern human brain organoids (right).
Brain matter is not well preserved in the fossil record.
Which makes it impossible to know how modern human brains differ from our extinct ancestors, the Neanderthals.
From the fossilized skulls we know that their brains were large - slightly larger than ours, in fact.
But they tell us little about its neurology and development.
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego came up with an exciting way to begin to answer this question.
They created patches of genetically engineered brain tissue to carry a gene that belonged to Neanderthals and other archaic hominins, but not Homo sapiens.
Although the research is very premature, the researchers found that Neanderthalized brain organoids produced significant changes in the way the brain is organized and wired.
Is this the oldest story ever told?
A close-up of one of the three pigs.
Lastly, take a minute to marvel at the oldest known figurative rock art created by humans, revealed to the world in January.
Painted in ocher red in limestone caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, it features a friendly pig involved in a fight or some other interaction with two others.
It is at least 45,000 years old and makes these prehistoric Picassos the earliest known storytellers.
It seems appropriate that we are still telling a story about three little pigs today.
Archeology Discoveries Neanderthals