Much more has been found:
New Haul Of Homo Naledi Bones Sheds Surprising Light On Human Evolution
When fossil hunters unveiled the remains of a mysterious and archaic new species of human found deep inside a cave in South Africa two years ago, the scientific community was stunned. Since then, bodies of the long-lost family members have piled up.
In work published on Tuesday in the journal eLife, the team reveals how high that pile has become. They now have the remnants of at least 18 Homo naledi, as the species is named. The most recent haul of bones, found in a cave chamber 100 metres from the first, includes a nearly complete adult skull.
Tests on the material found the bones to be between 335,000 and 236,000 years old, making them far younger than many scientists had expected. “It means that this species of primitive hominid was actually around at the same time as Homo sapiens,” said Lee Berger, the lead scientist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
The bones, remarkably, show few signs of disease or stress from poor development, suggesting that Homo naledi may have been the dominant species in the area at the time. “They are the healthiest dead things you’ll ever see,” said Berger.
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