Direct dating of human remains and the ever changing story of human evolution
The development of nearly non-destructive dating has given access to many human fossils. The results have contributed to some major revisions of the chronology of modern human evolution. The dating of Irhoud pushed back the age of the earliest Homo sapiens to around 300,000 years ago. Direct dating also demonstrated that anatomical associations, for example for Homo floresiensis or Homo naledi, may lead to erroneous age assessments. This presentation will give an overview of the results published in the last three years, showing that the phylogenetic tree of humans has gained considerable complexity. It can be expected that new discoveries in geographical areas that have not yet seen systematic investigations will further contribute to the complex and exciting story of human evolution.