[pjreddie]

They found two really old skeletons in Europe that are older than other skeletons. They are skeletons of a "modern"-ish human. They know because the teeth of the skeletons have a specific thing that the teeth of humans have but not the teeth of other primates.

The older skeleton is 1 million years older than old skeletons found in Africa. So now the oldest skeletons that we know about come from Europe not Africa, raising the possibility that humans evolved in Europe.

[valuearb]

They weren't skeletons of "modern-ish" humans, they were primitive hominin, i.e. a group that includes Chimps, humans, and Australopithecus.

[insulanian]

> They know because the teeth of the skeletons have a specific thing that the teeth of humans have but not the teeth of other primates.

What is the "specific thing"?

[metafunctor]

I don't care to explain like to a five year old, but the authors of the paper propose that only the modern human lineage have a total of four premolars in the lower jaw with a single root each. They claim these were never present in other hominid species.

[weavie]

I was under the impression that it was because humans learned to control fire, meaning we could eat softer food which altered the human teeth. However, 7.2m years massively predates our current understanding of when fire was first utilised..