Did humanity really arise in one single place? What the latest science says about our origin story
New evidence is prompting researchers to rethink Homo sapiens’ origin story—and what it means to be human.
Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias is a Ph.D. candidate in evolutionary anthropology at the University of Zürich. Her research aims to reconstruct the past of contemporary hunting and gathering people from different places in Africa to better understand the processes that shaped the enormous genetic and cultural human diversity on the continent today. Her work is interdisciplinary, combining genetic, ecological, and archaeological analyses with ethnographic fieldwork among hunter-gatherer populations in the Republic of Congo. Previously, she worked in the Yucatán Peninsula, studying the drivers of linguistic diversity. She has been funded by several organizations, including the Leakey Foundation and Fundación “la Caixa.”
New evidence is prompting researchers to rethink Homo sapiens’ origin story—and what it means to be human.