These fossil discoveries are situated among technological breakthroughs, theoretical shifts, and changes in the sociocultural context in which human origins studies were conducted. These events naturally include the accretion of fossil material, the raw data which is the direct, if mute, testimony of the past. Even so, the goal of this one brief essay cannot be to provide an in-depth description and analysis of every significant development within the field of paleoanthropology, but rather to identify broad patterns and highlight a collection of “events” that are most germane in shaping current understanding of our evolutionary origin. Considering the grand sweep of history, the realization that human beings gradually evolved from some non-human ancestor represents a very recent insight.
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