Interviewee: Chris Stringer. Human origins expert Chris Stringer talks about the beginning of the hominid family tree. (DNAi Location: Applications > Human origins > Our family tree > Interview > Beginning the human line)

We have a whole lot of questions, particularly in this part of the evolutionary tree, sorting out which of these creatures might be ancestors for the ones that come afterwards. And of course we're beginning to learn much more about the early part of human evolution, here's Australopithecus afarensis, three to four million years old, and we now know that beyond this we have Ardipithecus, Orrorin, and Sahelanthropus even earlier African finds, which some people believe can be placed at the beginning of the human line, even before Australopithecus afarensis. So we can put back human origins probably, close to six million years, but that area's still very controversial and we need to know more about those early finds.

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