Dear Colleagues,

The study of human origins is facing a phase of ‘revolutionary science’ unparalleled in its history: many of its most cherished tenets are severely challenged by recent developments of many kinds, among them the claim that hominins may originate in Europe rather than Africa; the claim that humans were in California 130,000 years ago; the claims concerning the Denisovans, Red Deer Cave people, ‘Hobbits’ and others; the demise of the influential ‘African Eve’ hypothesis; the advent of the ‘domestication hypothesis’; the evidence of seafaring one million years ago; the evidence of palaeort extending back just as far; and many other developments that render a re-writing of the textbooks inevitable. The conservative sector of the discipline has bravely held the line but at some point the conservative interpretation of the human past is likely to collapse under the growing weight of evidence that this past has been spectacularly misjudged. We have reached a breaking point at which a paradigm change seems inevitable. The purpose of this Special Issue of Humanities is to provide a forum for the conservative and progressive voices in the discipline, allowing this paradigm change to be debated and chronicled. In August 2018, a major international conference to be held in Turin, Italy, entitled Is there palaeoart before modern humans? will also explore these subjects, and this Special Issue will be closely aligned with that event.

Contributions are invited from all scholars involved in the study of human origins who consider that a re-assessment of human and hominin origins can re-invigorate the discipline. Any topic relevant to such a re-assessment is welcome, but the main purpose of the collection of papers is to facilitate constructive debate about the direction of the fields of palaeoanthropology, Pliocene/Pleistocene archaeology and related specialties as they approach a crossroad. Contributions need to comply with the editorial guidelines of Humanities, need to be of the highest academic standards, and the initial submission of paper titles and maximum 100-words abstracts is strongly encouraged.

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Humanities is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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• Human evolution
• Palaeoanthropology
• Pleistocene palaeoart
• Cognitive evolution
• Human modernity
• Paradigm change.