Description: Since hominins first appeared on Earth long ago, how have they evolved and survived? This series introduces the field of biological anthropology, blending brain science with archaeology to answer that question. The previous series, Human Investigation Report, followed the Aure exploration team as they lived alongside humans and observed them, showing why humans think, perceive, and behave the way we do today — offering readers a taste of the essence of brain science. This newly planned series, Humanity Exploration Report, introduces an even deeper field: biological anthropology — or, more precisely, "paleo-neuro-biological anthropology." In other words, this series goes beyond present-day humans to explore what kind of brains hominins had hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of years ago, and how they evolved and survived on Earth, using both brain science and archaeology. It introduces readers to a discipline that uses biological principles to imagine humanity's distant past. The name of this field sounds intimidating and complicated, but through it, we can actually find fascinating answers about how humans lived tens of thousands of years ago. If Human Investigation Report was "a brain science project for children," then Humanity Exploration Report is the first project to introduce children to "the brain science of Homo sapiens." History is truly a scientific subject — and we hope even children who love history will enjoy this series! While Human Investigation Report was a book that children who love brain science and science in general could immerse themselves in, Humanity Exploration Report adds history to the mix, making it enjoyable for history-loving kids as well. History may feel like the humanities, far removed from science, but in truth, history is an incredibly scientific discipline. To understand how our ancestors lived, we must imagine and reconstruct their lives from small fragments of evidence and clues — and for that reconstruction to be convincing, a scientific approach is essential. In that sense, biological anthropology may be the purest form of science of all. This series was created with the hope that children can experience that essence of science for themselves. The human ancestors depicted in this series are not presented as absolute truth. Just as we infer "humanity must have lived this way" from surviving bone fragments, skull shapes, and the ruins and artifacts our ancestors left behind, this book uses a similar structure — much like a modern forensic science team tracing a culprit from clues left at a crime scene. In that spirit, we hope every young reader can become an "anthropology detective," imagining our ancient ancestors for themselves. To understand how humanity built today's vast civilizations, and what sets us apart from other great apes, we need to explore biological anthropology. So why introduce children not just to brain science, but to a field that sounds as challenging as biological anthropology? Recent scientific discoveries about what makes humans different from other apes reveal astonishing insights. Very young great apes — orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas — show little difference from two- or three-year-old human children. Scientists have found that they are remarkably intelligent and capable of many of the same cognitive behaviors we are. So how did we come to build such an enormous, complex civilization, while they remain in a more primitive state? And why did Homo neanderthalensis, Homo erectus, and Homo habilis fail to survive, going extinct instead? To find clues, we must examine how the brains of early Homo sapiens differed from those of great apes — and from other now-extinct hominins. And when we look closely, it turns out that brain size wasn't the deciding factor. It wasn't about having a bigger skull or greater brain capacity, either.