On his grandfather’s land near the southern tip of Africa, Christopher Henshilwood found what was said to be the oldest known example of man-made art. The geometric design was expertly etched on a piece of red stone.

The ability to create and communicate using such symbols is “an unambiguous marker” of modern humans. It is one of the characteristics “that separate us from any other species, living or extinct,” says Henshilwood, an archaeologist at Norway’s University of Bergen and University of the Witwatersrand in Africa.

Using ancient migration routes, early humans spread across the Earth.  Eventually they were largely responsible for the extinction of their main competitor: Neanderthals. Read more ...