Human family tree gets another branch
WHILE EXPLORING A remote network of crevices in South Africa’s Gauteng province, caver Steve Tucker stumbled upon a hoard of bones.
After being recovered and analysed as part of an international collaboration involving the University of Colorado, the University of Witwatersrand and the National Geographic Society, the fossils were found to belong to a previously undiscovered human ancestor. The species was named Homo naledi, which comes from the word for ‘star’ in the local Sesothothe language.
H. naledi stood at just 1.5m in height and had an orange-sized brain when fully grown. “The only thing similar we know of are the so-called ‘hobbits’ of Flores Island in Indon Indonesia,” explained the University of Colorado’s Charles Musiba.
The researchers are yet to determine how old the fossils are or exactly where H. naledi fits into the human family tree. Initial studies suggest that their small brains and body size most closely resemble H. erectus, the oldest known early humans. However, there are also similarities with Australopithecus, ancestors of modern humans that died out two million years ago.
“This raises many questions,” Musiba said. “How many species of human were there? Were there lines that simply extended outward and then disappeared? Did they co-exist with modern humans? Did they interbreed?”