hominid

While brown bears don’t eat humans, they still kill about twice as many hominids as the North American black bear, mostly in protection of their cubs.

The authors add, "In wild chimpanzees, the intricacies of tool use learning continue into adulthood. This pattern supports ideas that large brains across hominids allow continued learning through the first two decades of life."

Her search through sediment from various levels of the Ranis excavation turned up DNA from a broad array of mammals, but none from hominids.

Previous work on Pierolapithecus suggests that an upright body plan preceded adaptations that allowed hominids to hang from tree branches and move among them.

"It's not so unusual to get useful DNA from very old specimens of our hominid ancestors or other animals," Pool says.