The cranium of the juvenile skeleton of Australopithecus sedibaPICTURE BY: BRETT ELOFF. COURTESY OF LEE BERGER AND THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND
Australopithecus sediba fossils dating back nearly 2 million years ago may call for a shift in thinking about the origin of man. Excavated from the Malapa caves near Johannesburg, South Africa, the fossils—including a hand, foot and ankle, a pelvis, and a partial skull—are dated and described in five papers published online today in Science (September 8). The combined findings indicate that Au. sediba had a mosaic of features, some primitive and distinctly of the genus Australopithecus, while others resembled those of Homo.
“If we found [the specimens] as separate parts, we’d probably think they came from different species or maybe even different genera of early human,” said Steven Churchill, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University and a co-author on four of the five papers.
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