The exhibition the Origin of Human Beings opened to the public on October 22^nd, 2015. It has been one of the four permanent exhibitions since 1958 when the museum first opened to the public. It is highly attractive to visitors of varied age groups. Many add-on contents include new discoveries and research results of paleoanthropology, and many new specimens.

Regarding some most-concerned questions like “Who are we?” and “Where did we come from?” the exhibition tries to provide answers with two sections—“Know Thyself” and “the Origin of Modern Human Beings”.

In “Know Thyself”, five segments are listed to probe into the theme: the development of a human individual, attempts to explore the human origin, man is animal, humans are a distinctive type of animal and the origin of humans as a distinctive animal. While in the “the Origin of Modern Human Beings” section, the exhibition tells stories of humanity from “Toumai” to modern human spanning seven million years. 

The Origin of Human Beings features well-designed display panels, specimens, multimedia, dioramas, projections and virtual imaging exhibits, all in order to precisely reflect scientific discoveries and researches.

The number of specimens in this hall is about 160. For example, specimens of living animals indicating the position of humans in nature; various specimens of Paleolithic apes, the possible ancestors of humans, from 10 to 20 million years ago; some representatives of the various stages covering seven million years from Ardipithecus to Homo sapiens; and their stoneware and artworks.

In this exhibition, many famous ancient human fossil replicas are displayed, including "Lucy" who lived 3.2 million years ago, the “Nariotum Boy" from 1.6 million years ago and Neanderthal skeletons from 60,000 years ago.