{"id":1539,"date":"2015-09-11T21:01:50","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T21:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kurzweilai.net\/?p=261618"},"modified":"2015-09-12T08:10:01","modified_gmt":"2015-09-12T08:10:01","slug":"discovery-of-homo-naledi-adds-a-new-branch-to-the-human-family-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2015\/09\/11\/discovery-of-homo-naledi-adds-a-new-branch-to-the-human-family-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovery of Homo naledi adds a new branch to the human family tree"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Skeletal fossil of the hand of Homo naledi (photo credit: John Hawks, UW\u2013Madison)<\/p><\/div>\n

An international research team has discovered a new species of a human relative, Homo naledi<\/em>, uncovered in a cave outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. The discovery in late 2013 may shed light on the diversity of our genus<\/a> and possibly its origin.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s findings, which are published in two papers in the open-access journal eLife<\/em>, were announced by South Africa\u2019s University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society, and the South African National Research Foundation.<\/p>\n

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Homo naledi: A New Species on the Human Family Tree (illustration credit: S.V. Medaris\/UW-Madison)<\/p><\/div>\n

The authors describe Homo naledi as being similar in size and weight to a small modern human, with human-like hands and feet. The skull had a small braincase “similar in size to other early hominin species that lived between four million and two million years ago.”<\/p>\n

The discovery indicates that\u00a0H. naledi<\/em>\u00a0intentionally deposited bodies of its dead in a remote cave chamber — behaviors previously thought limited to humans.<\/p>\n

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This figure includes the 737 partial or complete anatomical elements of Homo naledi found (credit: Lee R. Berger et al.\/eLife)<\/p><\/div>\n

Lee Berger, a research professor in the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand and a National Geographic<\/em> Explorer-in-Residence, led the expeditions that recovered the fossils — more than 1,500 bones belonging to at least 15 individuals.<\/p>\n

The National Geographic<\/em> article “This Face Changes the Human Story. But How?<\/a>” offers striking art and photography on this discovery.<\/p>\n