ABSTRACT
The closer to the present the story of human evolution gets, the more interesting it becomes. Saying that humans have an ancestry in common with bacteria is likely to induce yawns or shrugs. Saying that humans have a common ancestry with all living monkeys might get some attention. But the question of whether Neandertals were or were not in the ancestry of modern humans sparks considerable interest. To whom are humans most closely related? Did humans really evolve from apes? What is it that makes humans different from apes? Just who are we? What does it mean to be human?
