If there’s one thing that paleoanthropology has revealed time and again, it’s that many renditions of ancient human species preceded us modern humans today.
While Neanderthals and even Homo erectus have become fixtures in the human origin story, a lesser-known predecessor appears to predate all the others: Homo habilis.
H. habilis has been called the oldest known member within the Homo genus, though not without controversy and ongoing debate.
By many scientists’ accounts, the species was likely walking upright on Earth more than 2 million years ago — which is to say, nearly 2 million years before Homo sapiens even appeared on the evolutionary tree.
