A tiny, ancient hominin may have been surprisingly clever

“The March of progress”,T created by Rudolph Zallinger in 1965, is an image that has launched a thousand -shirts. It shows a line-up of six figures. The first is hunched and ape-like. The rest become gradually taller and straighter until eventually a neatly shaven strides into the future.The picture captures a conviction still prevalent among anthropologists. This is that the evolution of intelligence in humans and their ancestors was driven by ever-larger brains enabling more complex behaviours, such as better designs for stone tools, or abstract ideas expressed through culture and art.