In what National Geographic is calling “one of the greatest fossil discoveries of the past half century,” an international team of scientists working in South Africa have discovered remains belonging to a previously unidentified species of human ancestor.
The discovery, which was led by paleoanthropologist Lee R. Berger, a human evolution studies professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, was reported in a new research article published this week in the journal eLife. The species was found in a large chamber in the Rising Star Cave and has been named Homo naledi, the New York Times reported.
According to Nat Geo, H. naledi had a tiny, primitive brain and apelike shoulders suitable for climbing. In other ways, however, it bears a remarkable resemblance to modern humans, such as feet that were virtually identical to those of present-day H. sapiens, they added. It also has small body mass and stature similar to small-bodied humans, the researchers wrote.
Berger and his more than 60 fellow researchers found well over 1,500 individual fossil elements belonging to H. naledi in the cave, making the find the largest sample for any hominin species at any single African site, the Times added. Thus far, they have recovered parts belonging to at least 15 unique individuals, and there could be many more fossils yet to be discovered.
An odd mixture of ancient and modern features
The various bones were divided up amongst different members of the research team, and based on their analysis, the creature was found to be a mixture of modern and ancient hominin species. While some of the teeth resembled those of modern humans, the authors also found unusual and primitive premolar roots, Nat Geo explained.
Its skull was, on average, less than half the volume of a modern human skull, and the species was said to have a fully modern hand with curved fingers best suited for tree climbing. Its pelvis had flaring blades similar to those belonging to the Australopithecus afarensis Lucy and its leg bones are ancient looking at the top by become more modern in nature near the bottom.
Ian Tattersall, an expert on human evolution at the American Museum of Natural History in New York who was not involved in the study, called the discovery “very fascinating.” He told the Times that there was “no question there’s at least one new species here, but there may be debate over the Homo designation… the species is quite different from anything else we have seen.”
Paleoanthropologist Fred Grine of the State University of New York at Stony Brook told Nat Geo that H. naledi was “weird as hell,” and Berger added that it was “an animal that appears to have had the cognitive ability to recognize its separation from nature.”
The researchers have not yet determined exactly the age of this new pre-human ancestor, but based on its anatomy, they believe that it must be at least 2.5 to 2.8 million years old. The cave where it was found is likely no more than three million years old, according to the Times.
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Feature Image: Skeletal fossils of the hand of Homo naledi pictured in the Wits bone vault at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, on Sept. 13, 2014. The fossil hand is one of many fossils representing a new species of hominin. The broad thumb of Homo naledi suggests it was an expert climber. The Rising Star Expedition, a project that retrieved and analyzed the fossils was led in part by paleoanthropologist John Hawks, professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Credit: John Hawks/University of Wisconsin-Madison)
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