Is This Your Long-Lost Ancestor?

In the spring of 2010, the world met Australopithecus sediba , a nearly two-million-year-old human relative whose remains were found at a site just a short drive from Johannesburg, South Africa. By all accounts, it was an extraordinary discovery: two beautifully preserved partial skeletons–a juvenile male and an adult female–with the promise of more individuals to come. The fossils exhibit a striking mix of traits combining features of the primitive australopithecines (Lucy s ilk), such as a small brain, with features associated with our own genus, Homo small teeth, for instance. The anatomical mash-up led the discovery team to place them in a new species and to propose that it could be the ancestor of Homo . Spirited debate ensued.

[More]