Caves in South Africa continue to be a major source of new fossil discoveries. A new partial skull from Drimolen cave is now thought to be the oldest fossil of Homo erectus, which arose in Africa before spreading to Asia. At 2 million years old, this find is at least 100,000 years older than other Homo erectus fossils. The skull discovery also shows that at least three early human species coexisted in southern Africa around the same time. Australopithecus sediba, the last species of Australopithecus, is 1.98 million years old, while Paranthropus robustus, a species of the large-toothed group, also lived in southern Africa at this time. 

Published in the journal Science April 3, 2020, by Andy Herries and colleagues.