A new discovery has got researchers rethinking what they know about the human species.
A new human-like species has been found South Africa via the remains of no less than 15 people unearthed in a cave system. Their skeletal system has since been christened Homo naledi, which "appears very primitive in some respects-it had a tiny brain, for instance, and apelike shoulders for climbing."
"But in other ways it looks remarkably like modern humans," National Geographic said. "Where does it fit in the human family tree? And how did its bones get into the deepest hidden chamber of the cave-could such a primitive creature have been disposing of its dead intentionally?"
The discovery of the remains was a remarkable story in itself. The area where the ancient bones were found could only be accessed by "hyper-slender" individuals, thus necessitating the need to enlist really slender people who had both caving experience and scientific credentials. The chamber was "reachable only by a complicated pathway that includes squeezing through passages as narrow as about 7½ inches (17.8 centimeters)," Time noted.
As such, researchers have been puzzled with how the bones manage to reach such a remote area in the cave. They suspect that the species probably took the dead members of its group there.
Researchers managed to extract 1,550 specimens from the site, which was 30 miles northwest of Johannesburg. It has been named after the place where it was found, the Rising Star cave.
"In the local Sotho language, naledi means 'star,'" National Geographic explained.
"Lee Berger, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg who led the work, said naledi's anatomy suggest that it arose at or near the root of the Homo group, which would make the species some 2.5 million to 2.8 million years old," Time went on to report. "The discovered bones themselves may be younger."
Currently, the researchers have been unable to date the fossils, although they are working on this aspect.
"In East Africa, fossils can be accurately dated when they are found above or below layers of volcanic ash, whose age can be measured from the clocklike decay of radioactive elements in the ash," National Geographic said. "But the bones in the Rising Star chamber were just lying on the cave floor or buried in shallow, mixed sediments. When they got into the cave is an even more intractable problem to solve than how."
The species found may be the first Homo and may have lived in South Africa millions of years ago. Berger said that rather than be the "missing link," naledi could be the bridge between primitive bipeds and humans.
"What we are seeing is more and more species of creatures that suggests that nature was experimenting with how to evolve humans, thus giving rise to several different types of human-like creatures originating in parallel in different parts of Africa," Berger told the BBC. "Only one line eventually survived to give rise to us."
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