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Evidence record

Who were we before anyone wrote it down?

Every sentence on the exploration belongs to at least one claim below. Each says what kind of statement it is, what it rests on, what the evidence does not establish, and how far it was checked. Nothing here is a score, and none of it is a verdict on a belief or a theory.

Last checked 24 September 2026.

  • Source checked: 28
  • A judgement, not a fact: 12
  • Partly checked: 2
  • Presented as open: 3

If something here is wrong, misquoted, out of date or unfair, write to support@unknownoceans.com and give the claim number, which does not change.

What the question takes for granted

A question about deep prehistory, answered from fossils, dated sediments and genomes rather than from any record. The page reports what those sources have settled, where research teams disagree, and what no bone or genome can recover.

  • There was a single "we" before writing, one lineage whose story can be told

    Contested

    The page’s answer is that for most of our species’ existence there were several kinds of human, and that living people carry ancestry from more than one of them. How African populations were structured is itself disputed between research teams.

  • Prehistory can be reconstructed from bones, sediments and ancient genomes

    Established

    Every finding on the page rests on dated fossils or sequenced DNA. Both methods have limits the page names: DNA degrades, and most of what people thought leaves no trace.

How the question is labelled

Claim: Human origins

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Human origins

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

The question

Claim: For most of our existence there were several kinds of human.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Homo sapiens, in the Human Origins collectionOverview

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Reference work

    The source reads: During a time of dramatic climate change 300,000 years ago, Homo sapiens evolved in Africa.

  • Supports

    Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberiaintroduction, first paragraph

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026

    The source reads: At that time, as well as later when modern humans appeared in Eurasia, other ‘archaic’ hominins were already present in Eurasia.

  • Supports

    Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South AfricaeLife digest

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026

    The source reads: But as recently as 100,000 years ago, there were several other species that belonged to the genus Homo .

  • Supports

    Homo floresiensis, in the Human Origins collectionOverview

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Reference work

    The source reads: The fossils of H. floresiensis date to between about 100,000 and 60,000 years ago, and stone tools made by this species date to between about 190,000 and 50,000 years old.

What this does not establish

"Most" is a proportion of roughly 300,000 years. The last dates for the other kinds are estimates, and each has its own uncertainty.

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2016 on, "Homo floresiensis Liang Bua chronology": the revised Liang Bua dates are the ones the Smithsonian page gives; nothing moves the proportion.

Claim 3 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Ancient DNA has rewritten human prehistory twice in twenty years.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The two rewritings are the ones the page goes on to describe: interbreeding with Neanderthals, and a population found by sequencing a finger bone. Both papers appeared in 2010.

Claim 4 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The current picture is a braided, interbreeding set of populations rather than a line, and large parts of it are still blank.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Follows from the interbreeding the page reports and from the disputed structure of African populations; "blank" refers to the populations and the thought the page says are not recovered.

Claim 5 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The version most people learned (a neat progression from ape to hunter to farmer) has been dismantled by evidence, not by argument.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The page’s own framing of the passages that follow, each of which rests on fossils, dates or genomes.

Claim 6 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: What replaced it is messier, better supported, and considerably stranger.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

A judgement, not a finding.

Claim 7 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What fossils and ancient DNA settled

Claim: What fossils and ancient DNA settled

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “What ancient DNA settled” Two of the three findings under this title, Jebel Irhoud and Homo naledi, come from fossils and dating, not from ancient DNA.

Our species is older than we thought, and not from one place

Claim: Our species is older than we thought, and not from one place

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Other readings

Which model of African population history is right is uncertain, and a 2023 genomic study says so (claim 12).

Claim 9 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Fossils from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, dated to around 300,000 years ago, show a mix of modern facial features with more archaic braincase shape.

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapienspublished abstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Observational study: associations, not causes

    The source reads: We identified a mosaic of features including facial, mandibular and dental morphology that aligns the Jebel Irhoud material with early or recent anatomically modern humans and more primitive neurocranial and endocranial morphology. In combination with an age of 315 ± 34 thousand years

What this does not establish

The age, 315,000 plus or minus 34,000 years, comes from thermoluminescence dating of heated flints in a companion paper; "around 300,000" rounds it.

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2018 on, "Jebel Irhoud Homo sapiens age": the 2018 author correction changes figure axes and comparison samples, not the date or the morphology; nothing found that revises the age.

Claim 10 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Their describers read them, with finds across the continent, as evidence for a pan-African origin: an emergence of our species that involved the whole continent rather than one region of it.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

The fossils themselves show age and shape, and the pan-African reading is the describing team’s interpretation.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Combined with finds across the continent, they support a pan-African origin, populations connected and separating across Africa, rather than a single cradle.” The pan-African origin is the describing team’s interpretation, stated in the paper’s title and discussion, and is now attributed to them rather than presented as what the fossils show.

24 September 2026. Previously: “Their describers read them, with finds across the continent, as evidence for a pan-African origin, populations connected and separating across Africa, rather than a single cradle.” The paper does not describe populations connecting and separating, or contrast its reading with a single cradle. It says the history of our species involved the whole African continent and that the processes behind its emergence were not restricted to sub-Saharan Africa; the gloss now says only that.

Claim 11 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A 2023 genomic model of African population history points the same way, while stressing how uncertain the specific models still are.

Kind
What a model says. What a theory or model predicts or describes, which is not the same as what has been observed.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africaabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Model

    The source reads: Despite broad agreement that Homo sapiens originated in Africa, considerable uncertainty surrounds specific models of divergence and migration across the continent

  • Supports

    A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africaabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Model

    The source reads: preceded by links between two or more weakly differentiated ancestral Homo populations connected by gene flow over hundreds of thousands of years

What this does not establish

A demographic model fitted to present-day genomes, including 44 newly sequenced Nama genomes; it does not use the fossils, and its authors argue that studying a range of models is key.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “” The passage sat under "settled" with one team’s interpretation as its only support. Later genomic work bears on it and is candid about the uncertainty, so both are now reported.

Claim 12 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

We interbred with other human populations

Claim: We interbred with other human populations

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Recovering signals of ghost archaic introgression in African populationsintroduction

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Observational study: associations, not causes

    The source reads: Comparisons of genome sequences from archaic hominins to those from present-day humans have documented multiple interbreeding events

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2019 on, "Neanderthal ancestry African populations": later work (Chen and others 2020) finds Neanderthal ancestry in African individuals too; interbreeding stands.

Claim 13 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The Neanderthal genome, first sequenced in draft in 2010, showed that people with ancestry outside sub-Saharan Africa carry a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA.

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genomeabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Measurement

    The source reads: We show that Neandertals shared more genetic variants with present-day humans in Eurasia than with present-day humans in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting that gene flow from Neandertals into the ancestors of non-Africans occurred

  • Supports

    A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genomesection on gene flow

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Measurement

    The source reads: The data suggest that between 1 and 4% of the genomes of people in Eurasia are derived from Neandertals.

What this does not establish

The draft compared three Neanderthals with five present-day people (from France, China, Papua New Guinea and two African populations). Its 1 to 4 per cent is for people in Eurasia.

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2019 on, "Neanderthal ancestry African populations": Chen and others (Cell, 2020) report a smaller Neanderthal signal in African individuals too, from back-migration; the 2010 finding about people outside Africa stands.

Claim 14 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A finger bone from Denisova Cave then revealed a second archaic population, previously unknown, which contributed ancestry to living people in Oceania and, later work found, in parts of eastern Asia.

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberiaabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Measurement

    The source reads: Using DNA extracted from a finger bone found in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, we have sequenced the genome of an archaic hominin ... it contributed 4–6% of its genetic material to the genomes of present-day Melanesians ... Denisovans are described for the first time based on molecular data

  • Supports

    Recovering signals of ghost archaic introgression in African populationsintroduction, first paragraph

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Observational study: associations, not causes

    The source reads: from Denisovans into Oceanians (3) and eastern non-Africans (4, 5)

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2023 on, "Denisovan": later work adds fossils (a 2025 skull among them) without revising the ancestry the sentence reports.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “which also contributed ancestry to living people in parts of Asia and Oceania.” The 2010 paper reports ancestry in Melanesians only. Denisovan ancestry in eastern Asia came from later studies, which Durvasula and Sankararaman summarise; the sentence now says so, and cites them.

Claim 15 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The Denisovans were identified from genetics before anyone knew what they looked like.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberiaabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026

    The source reads: A tooth found in Denisova Cave carries a mitochondrial genome highly similar to that of the finger bone. This tooth shares no derived morphological features with Neanderthals or modern humans

What this does not establish

In 2010 the population was known from a finger bone and a tooth. Fossils that show more of its anatomy were identified later.

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2023 on, "Denisovan skull morphology Harbin": a 2025 report of a first Denisovan skull; the sentence is about 2010 and stands.

Claim 16 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: They were first described from their DNA, as the Neanderthals had been from their bones.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberianaming passage, after the bottleneck analysis

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026

    The source reads: We call the group to which this individual belonged Denisovans in analogy to Neanderthals, as Denisovans are described for the first time based on molecular data from Denisova Cave just as Neanderthals were first described based on skeletal remains retrieved in the Neander Valley in Germany

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “It is the first time a human population was discovered by sequencing.” Reich and others say Denisovans are described for the first time based on molecular data, as Neanderthals were first described from skeletal remains; that is a first for this group, and no source read says no human population had been discovered by sequencing before.

Claim 17 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

The hominin family tree is bushy

Claim: The hominin family tree is bushy

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

A metaphor for the coexisting species the passage names.

Claim 18 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Homo naledi, described from a South African cave system in 2015, has a mix of primitive and derived features and is far younger than its anatomy suggested.

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africaabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Observational study: associations, not causes

    The source reads: H. naledi has humanlike manipulatory adaptations of the hand and wrist. It also exhibits a humanlike foot and lower limb. These humanlike aspects are contrasted in the postcrania with a more primitive or australopith-like trunk, shoulder, pelvis and proximal femur.

  • Supports

    The age of Homo naledi and associated sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africaabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Earth and its record · Measurement

    The source reads: we have constrained the depositional age of Homo naledi to a period between 236 ka and 335 ka ... indicate a much younger age for the Homo naledi fossils than have previously been hypothesized based on their morphology

What this does not establish

The date is for the deposit and teeth in one chamber, 236,000 to 335,000 years; the 2015 description did not date the fossils.

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2018 on, "Homo naledi Rising Star dating": later papers argue over burial and engravings at the site, not the 2017 age range; nothing that changes it.

Claim 19 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Homo floresiensis, a small-bodied species on Flores, and Homo luzonensis in the Philippines, named in 2019, both lived until relatively recently.

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Homo floresiensis, in the Human Origins collectionOverview

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Reference work

    The source reads: The fossils of H. floresiensis date to between about 100,000 and 60,000 years ago ... H. floresiensis individuals stood approximately 3 feet 6 inches tall

  • Supports

    A new species of Homo from the Late Pleistocene of the Philippinesabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Observational study: associations, not causes

    The source reads: A hominin third metatarsal discovered in 2007 in Callao Cave (Northern Luzon, the Philippines) and dated to 67 thousand years ago ... warrants their attribution to a new species, which we name Homo luzonensis

  • Supports

    A new species of Homo from the Late Pleistocene of the Philippinesauthor postprint, main text, first paragraph

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Observational study: associations, not causes

    The source reads: CCH1 and CCH6-a are directly dated by U-series analysis to minimum ages of 67 thousand years (kyr)¹ and 50 kyr³, respectively.

    Notation restored: Reference superscripts restored from the author postprint PDF as rendered, read 2026-09-24. The text as extracted reads: CCH1 and CCH6-a are directly dated by U-series analysis to minimum ages of 67 thousand years (kyr)1 and 50 kyr3, respectively.

What this does not establish

The Homo luzonensis dates are minimum ages from U-series dating of a foot bone and a tooth, 67,000 and 50,000 years; the paper describes small teeth and bones but gives no body size.

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2019 on, "Homo luzonensis Callao Cave": a 2023 paper argues both species are not temporally exceptional relative to Homo erectus; nothing revises the dates.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Homo floresiensis on Flores and Homo luzonensis in the Philippines are small-bodied species that survived until relatively recently.” The sentence had no source. Small body size is established for Homo floresiensis; for Homo luzonensis, known from teeth and a few bones, the naming paper’s abstract does not claim it. Both now have sources.

Claim 20 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: When our own species appeared, and for a long time after, it shared the world with other kinds of human.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “For most of the past two million years, more than one kind of human was alive at the same time.” No cited source covered two million years. The narrower statement is what the cited papers say, and it is the one the page needs.

Claim 21 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: How the picture changed

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: 2010

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genomepublication record, Science 328 (2010)

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026

    The source reads: We present a draft sequence of the Neandertal genome

Claim 23 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The draft Neanderthal genome shows that people with ancestry outside sub-Saharan Africa carry Neanderthal DNA.

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genomeabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Measurement

    The source reads: We show that Neandertals shared more genetic variants with present-day humans in Eurasia than with present-day humans in sub-Saharan Africa

What this does not establish

The same finding as claim 14, with the same limits.

Later work looked for

As for claim 14: Chen and others (2020) add a smaller signal in Africa; nothing that changes this.

Claim 24 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: 2010

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 25 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A finger bone from Denisova Cave reveals a second archaic population, identified by sequencing before anyone knew what it looked like.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 26 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: 2015

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 27 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Homo naledi is described from the Dinaledi Chamber, with a mix of primitive and derived features.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africaabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026

    The source reads: Homo naledi is a previously-unknown species of extinct hominin discovered within the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system ... These humanlike aspects are contrasted in the postcrania with a more primitive or australopith-like trunk, shoulder, pelvis and proximal femur.

Claim 28 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Dating published in 2017 makes it far younger than its anatomy suggested.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Homo naledi is described from the Dinaledi Chamber, with a mix of primitive and derived features and a far younger date than its anatomy suggested.” The 2015 description did not date the fossils and said their age remained unclear; the young date came from a separate 2017 paper.

Claim 29 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: 2017

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 30 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Fossils from Jebel Irhoud push Homo sapiens back to roughly 300,000 years, and point to a pan-African origin rather than a single cradle.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapienspublished abstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026

    The source reads: this evidence makes Jebel Irhoud the oldest and richest African Middle Stone Age hominin site that documents early stages of the H. sapiens clade ... it shows that the evolutionary processes behind the emergence of H. sapiens involved the whole African continent

What this does not establish

The pan-African origin is the describing team’s reading, as in claim 11; the details of African population history remain uncertain (claim 12).

Claim 31 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Where the tree is still being redrawn

Claim: Where the tree is still being redrawn

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

When behaviour became modern

Claim: When behaviour became modern

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Pigment use, ornament, bone tools and blade technology appear in the African record tens of thousands of years before the traditional markers of behavioural modernity in Europe.

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

  • Supports

    The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behaviorabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · Artefacts and sites · Review of the field

    The source reads: many of the components of the "human revolution" claimed to appear at 40-50 ka are found in the African Middle Stone Age tens of thousands of years earlier. These features include blade and microlithic technology, bone tools ... systematic processing and use of pigment, and art and decoration.

  • Supports

    Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behaviorabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · Artefacts and sites · Model

    The source reads: In western Eurasia this transition, the Upper Paleolithic, occurred about 45,000 years ago, but many of its features appear transiently in southern Africa about 45,000 years earlier.

What this does not establish

Both papers were read as abstracts only. McBrearty and Brooks note that these items appear at sites widely separated in space and time, not together.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2015 on, "behavioural modernity": a 2024 to 2025 Behavioral and Brain Sciences target article and its commentaries still argue over how material evidence tracks cognition; nothing moves the African dates the sentence gives.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Pigment use, shell beads, engraved ochre and complex tools appear in the African record long before the traditional markers of behavioural modernity in Europe.” Shell beads and engraved ochre are not in the cited source, which predates the best-known finds of both; the list now names what the source lists, and "long before" is given the source’s own measure.

Claim 34 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Whether there was a sudden cognitive transition at all, or a gradual assembly that looked sudden because Europe was studied first, is debated.

Kind
Disputed. A contested point, where the page reports a side or the disagreement.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Other readings

The "human revolution" model holds that the change was sudden and cognitive; McBrearty and Brooks read the African record as gradual; Powell, Shennan and Thomas argue population density can explain the timing without any change in capacity.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2015 on, "behavioural modernity": the debate continues, in a 2024 to 2025 Behavioral and Brain Sciences target article and commentaries; "is debated" stands.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Whether there was a cognitive transition at all, or simply a change in what preserved and where archaeologists looked, is actively debated.” The cited paper argues against a sudden transition from where archaeologists looked, not from what preserved; the sentence now states the two positions the source sets out.

Claim 35 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

How many populations we still have not found

Claim: How many populations we still have not found

Kind
Open question. Something the page says is not known.
Review
Presented as open. The page says this is unresolved, and the review found that it is.

Claim 36 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Several genetic studies report contributions from “ghost” populations, groups detectable only as statistical signals in the genomes of living people, with no fossil yet assigned to them.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africaintroduction

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Review of the field

    The source reads: several studies have shown that introducing an archaic hominin ‘ghost’ population contributing to African populations in the period surrounding the out-of-Africa migration event substantially improves the description of genetic data ... This has driven speculation about the geographical range of the ghost population, possible links to specific fossils

  • Supports

    Recovering signals of ghost archaic introgression in African populationsintroduction

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026

    The source reads: the sparse fossil record and the difficulty in obtaining ancient DNA have made it challenging to dissect the contribution of archaic hominins to genetic diversity within Africa

What this does not establish

Durvasula and Sankararaman point to fossils with a mix of archaic and modern features, such as the Iwo Eleru cranium, as consistent with deep structure; none is assigned to the population they detect.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Genetic evidence indicates contributions from “ghost” populations, groups detectable only as statistical signals in modern or ancient genomes, with no fossil yet assigned to them.” The cited work detects these signals in present-day genomes, and whether they are real archaic contributions is disputed (claims 39 and 40), so the studies are now named as reporting them.

Claim 37 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: One finds that four West African populations carry 2 to 19 per cent of their ancestry from a lineage that split off before Neanderthals and modern humans did.

Kind
Experimental result. What an experiment or trial found, under its own conditions. A result in animals, cells or a simulation is not a result in people.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Recovering signals of ghost archaic introgression in African populationsabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Model

    The source reads: We provide complementary lines of evidence for archaic introgression into four West African populations. Our analyses of site frequency spectra indicate that these populations derive 2 to 19% of their genetic ancestry from an archaic population that diverged before the split of Neanderthals and modern humans.

What this does not establish

An inference from present-day genomes under a demographic model, with a wide range across the models the authors fit. No archaic genome from Africa exists to test it against.

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2020 on, "ghost archaic introgression Africa": Ragsdale and others (Nature, 2023) explain the signal without an archaic source, and a 2020 Royal Society Open Science paper attributes such signals to faster evolution in Africa; the page now reports the dispute.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “At least one such contribution to African populations is widely accepted; its source is unidentified.” "Widely accepted" rested on one paper, and a 2023 analysis disputes the archaic reading; the sentence now reports what that paper found and whose finding it is.

Claim 38 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A 2023 analysis argues that a weakly structured stem, two or more African populations linked by gene flow, explains the same patterns without introgression from a deeply divergent archaic group

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africaabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Model

    The source reads: preceded by links between two or more weakly differentiated ancestral Homo populations connected by gene flow over hundreds of thousands of years. Such weakly structured stem models explain patterns of polymorphism that had previously been attributed to contributions from archaic hominins in Africa

  • Supports

    A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africaresults

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026

    The source reads: This ongoing (or at least, periodic) gene flow qualitatively distinguishes these models from previously proposed archaic hominin admixture models

What this does not establish

Also a model fitted to present-day genomes; its authors say model misspecification explains much of the disagreement between earlier estimates.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “” The page called the African ghost contribution widely accepted. A 2023 study in Nature disputes it, and the disagreement is now reported with who holds each side.

Claim 39 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: so whether that lineage existed is itself disputed.

Kind
Disputed. A contested point, where the page reports a side or the disagreement.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Other readings

Durvasula and Sankararaman read the signal as archaic introgression; Ragsdale and colleagues read it as structure among early Homo sapiens populations.

Claim 40 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What bones cannot tell us

Claim: What bones cannot tell us

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

What they thought

Claim: What they thought

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Burial, pigment and ornament survive. Belief, language, kinship and law do not.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The page’s contrast between what leaves material traces and what does not; pigment and decoration are among the traces listed in claim 34.

Claim 43 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Whether Neanderthals used symbolic language in anything like our sense is unresolved and may be permanently unresolvable with available evidence.

Kind
Open question. Something the page says is not known.
Review
Presented as open. The page says this is unresolved, and the review found that it is.

Claim 44 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Why we are the only ones left

Claim: Why we are the only ones left

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Every other human lineage ended as a population of its own.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Homo sapiens, in the Human Origins collectionOverview; Evolutionary Tree Information

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Reference work

    The source reads: The species that you and all other living human beings on this planet belong to is Homo sapiens ... the common ancestor we share with Neanderthals, who are our closest extinct relatives

  • Supports

    A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genomeabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026

    The source reads: Neandertals, the closest evolutionary relatives of present-day humans, lived in large parts of Europe and western Asia before disappearing 30,000 years ago.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Every other human lineage ended.” The page itself reports that Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry survives in living people; what ended was each lineage as a distinct population.

Claim 46 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Environmental pressure, competition for the same niche and simple demographic chance have all been proposed

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

The sources discuss Neanderthals; the other lineages are less studied.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Climate, competition, disease, absorption through interbreeding and simple demographic bad luck have all been proposed.” The passage had no source. Kolodny and Feldman name environmental pressure, competition and neutral drift; disease was not in any source read and is removed, and absorption is now the page’s own inference from the interbreeding, as the possible section treats it.

Claim 47 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: and the documented interbreeding adds absorption.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Follows from the interbreeding in claims 14 and 15; set out as a possibility under "Replacement by absorption".

  • Context

    A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genomesection on gene flow

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026

    The source reads: The data suggest that between 1 and 4% of the genomes of people in Eurasia are derived from Neandertals.

Claim 48 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The evidence does not currently distinguish between them, and the answer may differ for each population.

Kind
Open question. Something the page says is not known.
Review
Presented as open. The page says this is unresolved, and the review found that it is.

Claim 49 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Why only one lineage remains

Claim: Why only one lineage remains

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Replacement by absorption

Claim: Replacement by absorption

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Given the documented interbreeding, the disappearance of Neanderthals and Denisovans may have been partly a merger rather than an extinction: small populations absorbed into a larger expanding one, leaving genetic traces but no distinct lineage.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

What this does not establish

The traces are small: 1 to 4 per cent Neanderthal in Eurasia in the 2010 estimate, and 4 to 6 per cent Denisovan in Melanesians. A merger in which so little survives is hard to tell apart from replacement with some interbreeding.

Other readings

Kolodny and Feldman model the replacement with interbreeding left out, and get it from migration and drift alone (claim 55).

Claim 52 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Demography, not superiority

Claim: Demography, not superiority

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Names the two lines of work in the passage, neither of which invokes a selective advantage.

Claim 53 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Two lines of work reach the outcome without one.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The page’s summary of claims 55 and 56.

Claim 54 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A neutral model, offered as a null hypothesis rather than a finding, gets the replacement from repeated migration out of Africa and species drift alone, with no selective advantage anywhere in it, and over a wide range of parameters it cannot be rejected.

Kind
What a model says. What a theory or model predicts or describes, which is not the same as what has been observed.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

A model that cannot be rejected is not shown to be true. It leaves interbreeding out, and its authors say selection and environment may or may not have played a role.

Claim 55 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Separately, a model of how skills accumulate finds that regional population density, rather than any increase in cognitive capacity, can explain when complex behaviour first appears in the record, which is an argument that larger and better-connected groups keep and pass on more of what they learn.

Kind
What a model says. What a theory or model predicts or describes, which is not the same as what has been observed.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

  • Supports

    Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behaviorabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · A simulation · Model

    The source reads: We show that demography is a major determinant in the maintenance of cultural complexity and that variation in regional subpopulation density and/or migratory activity results in spatial structuring of cultural skill accumulation.

  • Supports

    Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behaviorabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · A simulation · Model

    The source reads: Demographic factors can thus explain geographic variation in the timing of the first appearance of modern behavior without invoking increased cognitive capacity.

What this does not establish

Read as an abstract only. The population densities it compares are genetic estimates, and the argument is that demography can explain the timing, not that it did.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Separately, the archaeological record of when complex behaviour appears tracks regional population density rather than anatomy, which is an argument that larger and better-connected networks keep and pass on more of what they learn.” The source is a model showing that density can explain the timing, not an observation that the record tracks density, and what it sets aside is cognitive capacity, not anatomy.

Claim 56 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What was read