Lee Berger leads a team that will unearth newly discovered fossils.
Over the next several weeks, the expert team, directed by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Lee Berger
of South Africa's University of Witwatersrand, will delve into the
Rising Star cave system outside Johannesburg to carefully retrieve the
fossils.
Berger's
team made headlines in 2010 with the announcement of the discovery of
two skeletons of a new, two-million-year-old hominid species the
scientists named
Australopithecus sediba. Those finds were made at a site called Malapa Cave, northwest of Johannesburg.
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Professor Lee Berger, far right, and his son Matthew pose with the
skeleton of Australopithecus Sediba. The discovery, made in 2010, earned
the professor global acclaim. Picture: THE TIMES/DANIEL BORN |
Working
under Berger’s direction, local cavers made the latest discovery at a
site several miles from Malapa. The fossils will be excavated by a team
made up of experienced caver-scientists from around the world. All have
passed Berger's requirement of being small enough to fit into and out of
cramped cave passages.
Without
knowing exactly which species the bones come from, the team hopes their
arduous recovery helps answer a broad list of deep questions about
humanity's origins. [...]
news.nationalgeographic.com
Link 2:
Slinky scientists to excavate Gauteng humanoid fossil find
Actualización 12-11-13.
Multiple Ancient Hominids Found on Day 2 of Rising Star Expedition
On the first day in the fossil chamber at the Rising Star Expedition outside of Johannesburg, Lee Berger’s
team recovered a hominid mandible. Seeing other bones lying about, they
went to bed (or sleeping bag, rather) with the thrill of knowing they
were working on one of paleoanthropology’s most treasured finds: a
partial hominid skeleton.
By lunchtime the next day, the experts cataloging, photographing, and
examining the fossils in the tent clearly marked “SCIENCE,” were
shaking their heads in disbelief and excitement as they realized that
the bones clearly came from more than one individual. Whatever species
is represented, this is among the rarest of finds.
“This just doesn’t happen,” said Lee...
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Paleoanthropologist Peter Schmid examines one of the hominid bones emerging from caves below. (Photo by Andrew Howley) |
Actualización 13-11-13. Video:
Fossil Cache Yields Multiple Ancient Hominids
Follow the Expedition Daily
Actualización 22-11-13.
Fossil Fragments of Unknown Early Human Come Together
Scientists
at a cave site in South Africa are kicking into high gear as they
continue to uncover more fossil bones of what is suspected to be an
early human ancestral ("hominid") species.
The location is known as the "Rising Star" Cave site in South
Africa's Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, about 40 kilometers
north of Johannesburg, and although it is far too soon to determine the
classification and age of the fossil finds, the site could turn out to
yield the richest collection of hominid fossil finds at any one site in
South Africa, a country that has made history in the chronicles of human
evolution research. More than 300 fossil fragments of multiple
individuals have been recovered, with potentially much more to come. In
the world of early human fossil hunting, this is a rare occurrence...
Actualización 26-11-13.
Scientists bag more than 1 000 fossils at Cradle 'treasure trove'
Less than a month since Professor Lee Berger and the Rising Star
Expedition team began excavating a "spectacular" fossil find, they have
bagged more than a thousand fossils.
On Tuesday, the archaeological professor at Wits University's
Institute of Human Evolution announced that this would be their last day
of excavating at the site, "the richest early hominid site in South
Africa, including Sterkfontein".
"The expedition was built to recover a single skeleton, not a treasure trove.
"We need to re-assess the scientific plan and also how to deal with
the abundance of material," he said at a press briefing at the site in
the Cradle of Humankind...