Mapping the Path of Human Evolution Paleoanthropologists used to think that the evolution of our species was a simple one-way street, with early hominins such as Ardipithecus at the start and modern humans at the end. But as more fossil species have been found, the map of our past has been expanded, revealing new pathways and hominin species we never expected to be part of the map. Caroline VansickleToday, when paleoanthropologists describe evolutionary relationships among fossil hominins, the result is a complicated arrangement of two-way streets, dead ends, and new roads with species whose connections with the rest of the map are not yet clear, as indicated by the cloud cover that obscures some areas. Illustration by Barbara Aulicino