BREAKING NEWS: New species discovered at Cradle of Humankind
JOBURG - A new species of human relatives has been discovered at Maropeng.
The discovery was made by the University of the University of the Witwatersrand , the National Geographic Society and the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation of South Africa.
Besides shedding light on the origins and diversity of our genus, the new species, Homo naledi, appears to have intentionally deposited bodies of its dead in a remote cave chamber, a behaviour previously thought limited to humans.
Consisting of more than 1 550 numbered fossil elements, the discovery is the single largest fossil hominin find yet made on the continent of Africa.
The initial discovery was made in 2013 in a cave known as Rising Star in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, by Wits University scientists and volunteer cavers.
The fossils, which have yet to be dated, laid in a chamber about 90 meters from the cave entrance, accessible only through a chute so narrow that a special team of very slender individuals was needed to retrieve them.
So far, the team has recovered parts of at least 15 individuals of the same species, a small fraction of the fossils believed to remain in the chamber.
The fossil material was recovered in two expeditions conducted in November 2013 and March 2014, dubbed the Rising Star Expeditions. In the initial expedition, over a period of 21 days, more than 60 cavers and scientists worked together in what Marina Elliott, one of the excavating scientists, described as “some of the most difficult and dangerous conditions ever encountered in the search for human origins”.
Details: elifesciences.org
Meet Homo naledi, the human ancestor you never knew you had: https://t.co/YEQ2LFMwwn #Maropeng pic.twitter.com/1BzFOQYu6E
— CNN International (@cnni) September 10, 2015
EXTRAORDINARY! New human species, #HomoNaledi discovered at #Maropeng, South Africa. pic.twitter.com/7ZBI3xmren
— Ulrich Janse van Vuuren (@UlrichJvV) September 10, 2015
Prof Lee Berger on the #Maropeng historical fossil discovery: pic.twitter.com/S0Jzlkbf64
— 702 (@Radio702) September 10, 2015
Prof. @LeeRberger thanks and congratulates the team of "underground astronauts". #fossils #Maropeng pic.twitter.com/NXnSMvsDbU
— Wits University (@WitsUniversity) September 10, 2015
“This is a great moment for us. It is 90 years in the making…” – Prof @LeeRBerger #Maropeng pic.twitter.com/K4VgUOglWo
— US Embassy SA (@USEmbassySA) September 10, 2015
