What is a Human Being?
Studies on a fossil lower jaw with teeth, found at Ledi-Geraru in the Afar region of Ethiopia in 2013 have shed new light on the history of human evolution. Natural History Museum’s human origins expert Chris Stringer says it now looks possible that there could already have been three early Homo lineages in East Africa by 1.8 million years ago: habilis, rudolfensis and erectus. He explains that the study of human beginnings put the very question of what it is to be human is a stake: “Are we defined by our small jaws and teeth, our large brain, our long legs, habitual tool-making and meat-eating, or some combination of these or other traits? If we require the combined presence of several traits to recognise a fossil as Homo, many of these specimens are simply too incomplete to make a confident diagnosis, and that is true overall until we arrive at the more complete remains and behavioural evidence of Homo erectus.”
(Philosophy Now : https://philosophynow.org/issues/107/News_April_May_2015)
