<\/figure>\n<\/p>\nIs it in the way we live, laugh and love? Or maybe it is our dislike of cheesy clich\u00e9s? Deep within each of us, there must be something that makes us distinctly human. The trouble is, after centuries of searching, we still haven\u2019t found it. Perhaps that\u2019s because we have been looking in the wrong place.<\/p>\n
Ever since researchers began unearthing ancient hominin bones and stone artefacts, their work has held the tantalising promise of identifying the moment long ago when our ancestors made the transition to become human. Two of the most important fossil discoveries in this quest celebrate significant milestones this year. It is 100 years since the very first \u201calmost human\u201d Australopithecus<\/i> fossil came to light in South Africa, overturning established thinking about our place of origin. And it is 50 years since the most famous Australopithecus<\/i> of them all \u2013 Lucy, also known as \u201cthe grandmother of humanity\u201d \u2013 emerged from a dusty hillside in Ethiopia. Both fossils led researchers to believe we really could identify humanity\u2019s big bang: the time when a dramatic pulse of evolution saw the emergence of our human genus, Homo<\/i>.<\/p>\n
But today, the story of humanity\u2019s birth has become far more complicated. A string of discoveries over the past two decades suggests the dawn of our genus is harder to pin down than we had thought. So why did it once seem like Lucy and her ilk allowed us to define humanity and pinpoint its emergence? Why do we now find ourselves as far as ever from establishing what, exactly, a human is?\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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