Paleontology: The Age of Man

In British India a generation ago, scientists unearthed two small fossils that consisted of no more than partial jawbones and a few teeth. For many years, they gathered dust—one in London's British Museum, the other in the Calcutta Museum. The ancient bones were largely ignored by professionals and the public alike. That oversight may have been one of paleontology's biggest bloopers. After carefully studying those neglected fossils, two Yale investigators have now become convinced that they are rare remnants of the first manlike creatures on earth.

The bones belonged to an extinct...