New hominid to shed light on our evolution
Source: Agencies |
April 9, 2010, Friday
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TWO partial skeletons unearthed in a South African cave belong to a previously unclassified species of pre-human dating back almost 2 million years and may shed new light on human evolution, scientists said yesterday.
Fossils of the bones of a young male and an adult female suggest the newly documented species, called Australopithecus sediba, walked upright and shared many physical traits with the earliest known human Homo species.
The finding of the pre-human, or hominid, fossils - which scientists say are 1.78 to 1.95 million years old - was published in the journal Science and may answer some key questions about where humans came from.
Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, who led the team that found the fossils in August 2008, said the team was hoping to reveal a possible two further skeletons from the same site.
He was reluctant to define the new species as a "missing link" in human evolutionary history, but said it would "contribute enormously to our understanding of what was going on at that moment where the early members of the genus Homo emerged."
"Australopithecus sediba is undoubtedly a highly transitional species with a mosaic of characters that are shared by later hominids ... in the line of the genus Homo, as well as features that are shared by earlier hominids," he said.
Many experts believe the human genus Homo evolved from the Australopithecus genus about 2 million years ago. One of the best-known pre-humans is "Lucy," the skeleton of a species called Australopithecus afarensis, and this new species is about 1 million years younger than "Lucy," the scientists said.
The species had long arms, like an ape, short powerful hands, and long legs capable of striding and possibly running like a human, the researchers said.
(Reuters)
Fossils of the bones of a young male and an adult female suggest the newly documented species, called Australopithecus sediba, walked upright and shared many physical traits with the earliest known human Homo species.
The finding of the pre-human, or hominid, fossils - which scientists say are 1.78 to 1.95 million years old - was published in the journal Science and may answer some key questions about where humans came from.
Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, who led the team that found the fossils in August 2008, said the team was hoping to reveal a possible two further skeletons from the same site.
He was reluctant to define the new species as a "missing link" in human evolutionary history, but said it would "contribute enormously to our understanding of what was going on at that moment where the early members of the genus Homo emerged."
"Australopithecus sediba is undoubtedly a highly transitional species with a mosaic of characters that are shared by later hominids ... in the line of the genus Homo, as well as features that are shared by earlier hominids," he said.
Many experts believe the human genus Homo evolved from the Australopithecus genus about 2 million years ago. One of the best-known pre-humans is "Lucy," the skeleton of a species called Australopithecus afarensis, and this new species is about 1 million years younger than "Lucy," the scientists said.
The species had long arms, like an ape, short powerful hands, and long legs capable of striding and possibly running like a human, the researchers said.
(Reuters)
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