Skull may link pre-humans to modern man

(CNN) -- An international team of researchers announced this week that they have found a one million-year-old skull in Ethiopia that actually simplifies their thinking about how humans evolved. The skull belonged to an ape-like prehuman known as Homo erectus. Up until now, scientists did not think that Homo erectus lived in Africa during a critical time period just under a million years ago when Homo sapiens, or modern man, first evolved in Africa. The new find, scientists say, puts Homo erectus in the right place at the right time to have been man's direct ancestor.

CNN NewsPass Video A million-year-old skull discovered in Africa is changing the way many scientists think humans evolved. CNN's Ann Kellan reports (March 20) Play video