Study: Modern Brains Evolved Much More Recently Than Thought

Modern brains are younger than originally thought, possibly developing as recently as 1.5 million years ago, according to a study published Thursday. By that time, the earliest humans had already begun walking on two feet and had started fanning out from Africa. 

Our first ancestors from the genus Homo emerged on the continent about 2.5 million years ago with primitive, apelike brains about half the size of those seen in today's humans.   Scientists have been trying to solve a mystery for as long as our origin story has been known: Exactly when and where did the brain evolve into something that made us human?  "People had thought that these humanlike brains evolved actually at the very beginning of the genus Homo, so about 2.5 million years ago," paleoanthropologist Christoph Zollikofer, a co-author of the study published in the journal Science, told AFP.