'It makes no sense to say there was only one origin of Homo sapiens': How the evolutionary record of Asia is complicating what we know about our species

Two skulls against a black background -- human on the left and Homo erectus on the right.

The story of our ancient ancestors began in Africa millions of years ago. But there are considerable gaps between the first and current chapters of that tale, and some anthropologists are looking to Asia to fill in missing information about how humans evolved.

"The genus Homo evolved in Africa," Sheela Athreya, a biological anthropologist at Texas A&M University, told Live Science. But as soon as Homo left the continent, "all bets are off because evolution is going to treat every population differently."