Early humans co-existed in Africa with human-like species 300,000 years ago
Humans may have driven earlier species to extinction
its dead, a trait long believed to be uniquely human.
But dating of the sediments in which the fossils were found and teeth of the specimens showed that the species was roaming the African bush between 236,000 and 335,000 years ago, around the time modern humans were emerging.
“No one thought that a smallbrained, primitive hominin could extend down through time this long, and that period is exactly the moment when we thought modern humans were arising here in Africa,” said Lee Berger, project leader for Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand.
Berger said the dating may force scientists to rethink their understanding of the emergence at that time of new technologies such as ochre production and bead work for adornments. University of the
There is archaeological evidence from that period but little in the way of fossils to suggest who exactly made such things.
“Now that we know modern humans or at least the earliest forms of them were not alone during this expansion of the tool kit, it makes us now have to get better and better evidence to say who made what,” Berger told Reuters.
The question of when Homo naledi went extinct, and why, remains unanswered, Berger said. Those pre-humans could have survived until 200,000 years ago or even more recently as the fossils uncovered so far do not indicate “an extinction event.”
Homo sapiens may have been the culprit. Some scientists believe early modern humans drove other hominin relatives — for example, Neanderthals in Europe — to extinction elsewhere.
“All we know is that Homo naledi is extinct today. Could Homo sapiens have driven them extinct? Yes,” Berger said.
Scientists also know from DNA evidence that Homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals, so it could have mated with Homo naledi as well, though it was a more primitive hominin.
“Could there have been gene exchange between Homo naledi and early Homo sapiens? It’s entirely possible,” Berger said.
He said one of the next steps in this quest was to obtain Homo naledi DNA, which has so far proved elusive, but researchers are trying.