A Canadian-led research team probing the dirt floor of a hillside cavern in South Africa has discovered proof that the site was occupied by a hominid species two million years ago, making it the earliest known home of our cave-dwelling human ancestors.

Small tools believed to have been used by homo habilis--one of several species of advanced primates that lived in south-ern Africa at that time--were unearthed by University of Toronto archeologist Michael Chazan and colleagues from the Hebrew Universityin Jerusalem and South Africa's McGregor Museum.