When did hominids first display the human capacity?
Basically the earliest evidence we have is from the Cro-Magnon in Europe, but there is inferential evidence from the very early occupation of Australia 60 thousand years ago by people who must have been quit extraordinary navigators to get there then. In Africa there are hints of symbolic behavior like making of beads and trading objects long distances and so on in the 40-60 thousand years ago range. There are these hints but the record isn’t very good. Why is burial of the dead so significant in human history? It is something that only humans do in the world today and it is the earliest such behavior that we have found. Neanderthals probably invented burial of the dead but their motivations for doing so may have been very different from the kind of motivations that Homo sapiens have. What are the impacts of the discovery of the Lucy skeleton? It sort of inaugurated the modern era of studies of very early hominids in Africa. It was the only place where there are very early hominids. It
