Institute of Human Origins

Ledi-Geraru is one of IHO's fieldwork sites in the fossil-rich[8] Afar Region of Ethiopia. In 2013, graduate student Chalachew Seyoum discovered the lower mandible known as LD 350-1, the oldest fossil from the human genus, Homo.[9] The discovery pushed back evidence of the human genus, Homo, to 2.8 million years,[10] ago, nearly a half-million years earlier than previously known.[9]

Ongoing IHO field work in Hadar, Ethiopia, where Lucy was found in 1974, addresses the evolution and ecology of Australopithecus (3.0–3.4 million years ago) and the origin of Homo and stone-tool making (2.3 million years ago). In 2007, the field project opened ASU's Hadar Field School, which educates American study abroad students in field methods in human origins research.[11]

Since joining IHO in 2001, Curtis Marean has directed the organization's Pinnacle Point fieldwork, which is working to produce and integrate a climate, environment, and paleoanthropological sequence for the final stage in human evolution. The focus of the Pinnacle Point excavations has been at Cave 13B (PP13B), where the fieldwork team has discovered early evidence of symbolic behavior. In 2009, the examination of worked silcrete stone from Pinnacle Point indicated that it was heat-treated, and is the oldest known example of such technology.[12][13] Pinnacle Point also represents the oldest known occurrence of human consumption of shellfish, as well as an early use of ochre.[14] These features indicate a sophisticated level of modern behaviors that had previously been associated with Upper Paleolithic of Europe. The discoveries here are key pieces of evidence supporting the early florescence of modern human behaviors in Africa.[12]

The IHO Templeton Research Program is a collaborative inquiry into the evolutionary foundations of human uniqueness. The $4.9 million, three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation is the largest of its type for human origins research, and will support 11 linked investigations of where, when, and how unique human capacities for complex cognition, cumulative culture, and large-scale cooperation emerged.[15]