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Homo naledi: New species of human ancestor discovered in South Africa
cnn.com ^ | September 10, 2015 | David McKenzie and Hamilton Wende

Posted on 09/10/2015 5:12:13 AM PDT by ilovesarah2012

Rising Star Cave, South Africa (CNN)When an amateur caver and university geologist arrived at Lee Berger's house one night in late 2013 with a fragment of a fossil jawbone in hand, they broke out the beers and called National Geographic.

Berger, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, had unearthed some major finds before. But he knew he had something big on his hands.

What he didn't know at the time is that it would shake up our understanding of the progress of human evolution and even pose new questions about our identity.

Two years after they were tipped off by cavers plumbing the depths of the limestone tunnels in the Rising Star Cave outside Johannesburg, Berger and his team have discovered what they say is a new addition to our family tree.

The team is calling this new species of human relative "Homo naledi," and they say it appears to have buried its dead -- a behavior scientists previously thought was limited to humans.

Berger's team came up with the startling theory just days after reaching the place where the fossils -- consisting of infants, children, adults and elderly individuals -- were found, in a previously isolated chamber within the cave.

(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: africa; godsgravesglyphs; homo; homonaledi; humanspecies; johannesburg; origins; risingstarcav; risingstarcave; southafrica
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http://natgeo.org/naledi)


41 posted on 09/12/2015 8:02:00 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW)
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The hand and foot of Homo naledi
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/uotw-tha100515.php
http://media.eurekalert.org/multimedia_prod/pub/web/100583_web.jpg

Homo naledi May Have Been Able to Walk, Climb, and Use Tools
http://www.archaeology.org/news/3757-151006-h-naledi-hand-foot


42 posted on 10/06/2015 10:59:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
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To: ilovesarah2012

Really, because there was a great documentary on PBS about three weeks ago and it focused on the team of young, thin, female PhDs from around the world who were brought together to conduct the extraction of the remains from the cave. No joke. It was rather fascinating to see them descend into the cave and squeeze through the opening. They reckoned that they were the first people down there in quite literally millions of years.


43 posted on 10/07/2015 12:17:23 AM PDT by Jack Straw from Wichita
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To: ilovesarah2012

video: virtual tour of rising star cave

http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/science/2015/09/11/video-rising-star-cave-virtual-tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaLv6ZFcQwE


44 posted on 10/08/2015 3:08:12 PM PDT by SteveH
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To: ilovesarah2012

articles from 2017 update research on naledi indicating that the actual age is about 236,000 BC - 335,000 BC.

Also a second chamber, Lesedi, has now been discovered containing hominin remains.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/05/homo-naledi-human-evolution-science/

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/09/ancient-humans-homo-naledi-lee-berger-paleontology-science/


45 posted on 04/22/2020 1:39:02 AM PDT by SteveH
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...
Note: this topic is from 09/10/2015. Thanks for the updated info SteveH!

46 posted on 04/23/2020 6:04:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: ilovesarah2012

I hate these kind of headlines. This species isn’t an ancestor. They say it lived at the same time as the earliest humans. They are cousins since they are genus homo.


47 posted on 04/23/2020 7:02:15 PM PDT by Varda
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To: Jack Straw from Wichita
Berger wrote a great book on the subject:

He needed female [because of size] anthoropologists who were spelunkers [because of the intense cave diving conditions].

Utterly fascinating.

48 posted on 04/23/2020 7:06:52 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: ilovesarah2012

Episode on PBS’s Nova — Dawn of Humanity

The Discovery of Homo Nadeli

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzLJAa5X4Fo&t=7s

1 hour 52 minutes!

Anyway, the whole video, including the pretty women in the cave!


49 posted on 04/23/2020 7:25:46 PM PDT by Alas Babylon! (The prisons do not fill themselves. Get moving, Barr!)
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To: SunkenCiv

50 posted on 04/23/2020 7:44:32 PM PDT by null and void (By the pricking of my lungs, Something wicked this way comes ...)
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To: JoeProBono

I’m a flea-bit peanut monkey
All my friends are junkies
(That’s not really true)


51 posted on 04/23/2020 7:59:58 PM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER (We need to reach across the aisle, extend a hand...And slap the crap out of them)
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