New fossil skull from Africa reveals tangled roots at base of the human family tree - The Washington Post

New fossil skull from Africa reveals tangled roots at base of the human family tree - The Washington Post: A 2 million-year-old flat-faced skull pulled from the sandstones of East Africa has shored up claims that at least three species of early humans once coexisted in an “evolutionary experiment” that saw an explosive increase in brain size paired with radically different faces, teeth and jaws.

While the new partial skull and two newly found jawbones look radically different from modern humans, they match an enigmatic, nearly complete skull found 40 years ago that paleoanthropologists have long struggled to fit into the human family tree.