But some now think it could have been an earlier hominid known as Homo habilis.
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There seem to have been two hominid species present at Swartkrans around two million years ago.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Bones hint at first use of fire
In other words, we are descended from hominid wusses who thrived because they kept away from spiders.
And a seven-million-year-old hominid from Chad, known as Sahelanthropus tchadensis and nicknamed Toumai, may also have been bipedal.
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By far the most complete hominid skeletons in the world have been found here, dating back two million years.
In fact, civilization did arise from the foot, for when our hominid ancestors finally stood, hands and minds were freed.
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The ancient hominid had many features reminiscent of her early ape ancestry, but she also carried hints of her future descendents.
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The Toumai skull, found in Chad in 2001 and thought to be the earliest hominid, is between 6m and 7.4m years old.
This has led Professor Potts to speculate that "his" hominid was part of a single population containing both large and small individuals.
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It is not known which hominid species made the fires at Swartkrans.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Bones hint at first use of fire
Selective pressures had shaped them to withstand the cruelest climate Europe could dish out during their 200, 000-year tenure as the continent's top hominid.
Recent revised dates for other hominid occupation sites in North-East Asia show that human habitation of the region began about 1.3 million years ago.
But the jaws he studied, on his way to building a database on the evolution of hominid teeth apparently the biggest in the world changed his mind.
Evidence of the first dispersal comes from the site of Dmanisi in Georgia, where numerous hominid fossils dating to 1.75 million years ago have been unearthed.
You see, a current ad for the brand shows an ape, then an early hominid seeing a can of Dr. Pepper, and finally a homo sapiens drinking a can of the soda.
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These curious hominids lived about two million years ago in an era that scientists consider the crucible of human evolution, when four or more apelike hominid species struggled for survival in Africa.
Professor Blumenschine says this corroborates the work of other scientists in demonstrating the hominid's capacity both to make tools and to use them in butchering meat for food, even at this early time.
But his new data add weight to the theory that the more sophisticated idea of fair shares, which underpins collaborative behaviour, appeared in the hominid line only after the ancestors of the two species split from one another.
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