The Homo genus began approximately 2.3 million years ago with Homo Habilis, the first species in this lineage, which led to modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens.

Found in 1968 at Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge, Twiggy, or OH 24, is one of the oldest Homo habilis skulls. The skull, which was flattened over time, was not immediately recognized as a crucial find.

They called it Homo habilis, or the “handy man”, due to the presence of stone tools near its remains – tools which, the Leakeys said, the ancient human had crafted themselves.

Next up is Homo erectus. These bigger-brained, taller drinks of water came after Homo habilis, so they’re definitely associated with stone tools, including Acheulean tools.

Homo habilis lived 2.4 million to 1.4 million years ago, and Homo erectus lived 1.89 million to 110,000 years ago. Previously, scientists thought these early humans had brains much like modern humans.

On top of Homo sapiens, at least eight other species of our genus have walked Earth: Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, Homo erectus, Homo antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo naledi, Homo ...

While Habilis loved a hot cut of meat, she probably didn’t do much big-game hunting. Most of the animal bones scientists have found near her fossils and tools are from the beasts’ extremities.

But there may well be other Homo ancestors yet to be named and discovered. Notably, the world’s oldest known stone tools now appear more than 3 million years ago in the fossil record, which seems to ...

Louis S.B. Leakey, alongside co-authors Phillip Tobias and John Napier, published the first paper on H. habilis in Nature in 1964. That work addressed three key elements to meet the definition of Homo ...