ABSTRACT
Of all the branches of science, few have had such popular appeal as palaeontology, the study of the history of life on Earth. In the twentieth century, study of the dinosaurs progressed rapidly. Dinosaurs are undoubtedly fun to contemplate, but for most non-scientists they are really just entertainment. Fossils have always caught the public imagination. Countless books have been published describing the animals and plants of the past, from the trilobites of the Cambrian Period, through the age of the dinosaurs, to the mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers of recent times. Starting in the 1920s, scientists increasingly came to realise that the human race had originated in Africa, rather than Europe or Asia as had previously been assumed. It is presumed to be descended from a genus of apes called Australopithecus. The earliest human species was Homo habilis, which lived in eastern Africa some two million years ago. The search for fossil hominids, humankind's ancestors, has always excited people.
