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The biological singularities of humanity. Two million years between biology and culture. by José Braga, paleoanthropologist, university professor at the University of Toulouse III Paul Sabatier What processes have shaped our evolution, giving humanity such a singular identity for more than 2 million years (My)? In what way are we human through the interactions between our biology, our behaviors and our societies? Since when? The first humans (in the strict sense, the oldest representatives of the genus Homo) could have emerged very gradually in Africa from 2.7 My, probably over the course of a long process of several hundred thousand years. However, due to a lack of sufficient archives, the first major human singularities are still poorly defined. Scenarios diverge both on the location and on the modalities of emergence of the oldest typically human physical and technical abilities. For those interested in physical traits, dental remains – the best preserved – play a considerable role but are nevertheless insufficient to draw a consensual portrait of the first humans. Nearly a century after the first paleoanthropological discovery in Africa, fewer than 10 fossils testify to the beginnings of humanity between 2.7 and 2 Ma on this continent. In this context, the fossils discovered in South Africa are of great interest because of their greater number than elsewhere on the continent for the key period between 3 and 2 Ma.