Posted: 9/10/2015 5:38:35 AM EDT
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Study: Bones in South African cave reveal new human relative
MAGALIESBURG, South Africa (AP) — Scientists say they've discovered a new member of the human family tree, revealed by a huge trove of bones in a barely accessible, pitch-dark chamber of a cave in South Africa.
The creature shows a surprising mix of human-like and more primitive characteristics — some experts called it "bizarre" and "weird." And the discovery presents some key mysteries: How old are the bones? And how did they get into that chamber, reachable only by a complicated pathway that includes squeezing through passages as narrow as about 7½ inches (17.8 centimeters)? The site, about 30 miles northwest of Johannesburg, has yielded some 1,550 specimens since its discovery in 2013. The fossils represent at least 15 individuals.  However, no known relationship to the current POTUS.
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Brothers! Oh, brothers! We have all gathered here, to preserve our hallowed culture and heritage!
We aim to pull evil up by the root, before it chokes out the flower of our culture and heritage! And our women, let's not forget those ladies, y'all. Looking to us for protection! From...., ....., ....., and from all those smart-ass folks say we condescended from monkeys! |
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Brothers! Oh, brothers! We have all gathered here, to preserve our hallowed culture and heritage! We aim to pull evil up by the root, before it chokes out the flower of our culture and heritage! And our women, let's not forget those ladies, y'all. Looking to us for protection! From...., ....., ....., and from all those smart-ass folks say we condescended from monkeys! We thought you evolved into a horny toad.. |
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We thought you evolved into a horny toad.. Quoted:
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Brothers! Oh, brothers! We have all gathered here, to preserve our hallowed culture and heritage! We aim to pull evil up by the root, before it chokes out the flower of our culture and heritage! And our women, let's not forget those ladies, y'all. Looking to us for protection! From...., ....., ....., and from all those smart-ass folks say we condescended from monkeys! We thought you evolved into a horny toad.. The color guard is colored!? |
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The color guard is colored!? Quoted:
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Brothers! Oh, brothers! We have all gathered here, to preserve our hallowed culture and heritage! We aim to pull evil up by the root, before it chokes out the flower of our culture and heritage! And our women, let's not forget those ladies, y'all. Looking to us for protection! From...., ....., ....., and from all those smart-ass folks say we condescended from monkeys! We thought you evolved into a horny toad.. The color guard is colored!? Who made them the color guard?! |
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Brothers! Oh, brothers! We have all gathered here, to preserve our hallowed culture and heritage! We aim to pull evil up by the root, before it chokes out the flower of our culture and heritage! And our women, let's not forget those ladies, y'all. Looking to us for protection! From...., ....., ....., and from all those smart-ass folks say we condescended from monkeys! Got any pomade? I'm a Dapper Dan man myself. |
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Quoted: Got any pomade? I'm a Dapper Dan man myself. Quoted: Quoted: Brothers! Oh, brothers! We have all gathered here, to preserve our hallowed culture and heritage! We aim to pull evil up by the root, before it chokes out the flower of our culture and heritage! And our women, let's not forget those ladies, y'all. Looking to us for protection! From...., ....., ....., and from all those smart-ass folks say we condescended from monkeys! Got any pomade? I'm a Dapper Dan man myself. Sorry, I don't carry Dapper Dan, but this is just as good.  |
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Guesstimates for the age are 2 to 2.8 million years old (but they have very little to go on and are unusually uncertain). What's cool is that they had to have had torches to do this and burial ceremonies imply religion, which pushes the date for artificial light and complex philosophical thought way back.
Over the past century our timeline for activities that we think of as uniquely human has lengthened by leaps and bounds. It's become clear that our ancestors spent a loooooooong time acting very much like "modern" humans in basic ways. It makes me wonder how much we're missing and it makes our lightening quick advancement over the past 10,000 years even more remarkable. |
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Genus: Wookus Species: Firstladicus Nailed it. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COh9slRW8AA1NtW.jpg http://assets-s3.usmagazine.com/uploads/assets/articles/82406-michelle-obama-not-amused-in-saudi-arabia-photos/1422453772_462343134_michelle-obama-zoom.jpg <ed wood voice> IT'S UNCANNY!!! </ed wood voice> |
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Guesstimates for the age are 2 to 2.8 million years old (but they have very little to go on and are unusually uncertain). What's cool is that they had to have had torches to do this and burial ceremonies imply religion, which pushes the date for artificial light and complex philosophical thought way back. Over the past century our timeline for activities that we think of as uniquely human has lengthened by leaps and bounds. It's become clear that our ancestors spent a loooooooong time acting very much like "modern" humans in basic ways. It makes me wonder how much we're missing and it makes our lightening quick advancement over the past 10,000 years even more remarkable. We didn't come from these things |
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So if these beings were caring for their dead and burying them, for lack of a better term, why haven't we found lot's more? Is it a geography thing? This cave happened to preserve them? Also, can we determine if there was genetic differentiation within the group? Does one or more have more human features (FLOTUS jokes aside)? Can anyone show where Homo Naledi turned into Homo Sapiens and describe how that change came about? Since evolution is an adaptive response to conditions, what conditions led from this being to us? |
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Here's a very detailed article from National Geographic including details on how the find was made, how the analysis was done, etc: National geographic.
Interestingly the excavators were a team of a half dozen skinny as hell women (selected because nobody else could fit into the cave) working with helmet cams following direction from the surface and the lead paleoanthropologist practically open sourced the bones to a large team of 20 senior and 30 junior scientists from 15 countries. He doesn’t claim he has found the earliest Homo, or that his fossils return the title of “Cradle of Humankind” from East to South Africa. The fossils do suggest, however, that both regions, and everywhere in between, may harbor clues to a story that is more complicated than the metaphor “human family tree” would suggest.
“What naledi says to me is that you may think the record is complete enough to make up stories, and it’s not,” said Stony Brook’s Fred Grine. Maybe early species of Homo emerged in South Africa and then moved up to East Africa. “Or maybe it’s the other way around.” Berger himself thinks the right metaphor for human evolution, instead of a tree branching from a single root, is a braided stream: a river that divides into channels, only to merge again downstream. Similarly, the various hominin types that inhabited the landscapes of Africa must at some point have diverged from a common ancestor. But then farther down the river of time they may have coalesced again, so that we, at the river’s mouth, carry in us today a bit of East Africa, a bit of South Africa, and a whole lot of history we have no notion of whatsoever. Because one thing is for sure: If we learned about a completely new form of hominin only because a couple of cavers were skinny enough to fit through a crack in a well-explored South African cave, we really don’t have a clue what else might be out there. |
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Guesstimates for the age are 2 to 2.8 million years old (but they have very little to go on and are unusually uncertain). What's cool is that they had to have had torches to do this and burial ceremonies imply religion, which pushes the date for artificial light and complex philosophical thought way back. Over the past century our timeline for activities that we think of as uniquely human has lengthened by leaps and bounds. It's become clear that our ancestors spent a loooooooong time acting very much like "modern" humans in basic ways. It makes me wonder how much we're missing and it makes our lightening quick advancement over the past 10,000 years even more remarkable. We didn't come from these things Article states relative but not direct ancestor. |
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Ya'll really need to read the article.
Rick Potts, director of the human origins program at the Smithsonian Institution's Natural History Museum, who was not involved in the discovery, said that without an age, "there's no way we can judge the evolutionary significance of this find."
If the bones are about as old as the Homo group, that would argue that naledi is "a snapshot of ... the evolutionary experimentation that was going on right around the origin" of Homo, he said. If they are significantly younger, it either shows the naledi retained the primitive body characteristics much longer than any other known creature, or that it re-evolved them, he said. Besides the age of the bones, another mystery is how they got into the difficult-to-reach area of the cave. The researchers said they suspect the naledi may have repeatedly deposited their dead in the room, but alternatively it may have been a death trap for individuals that found their own way in. They have nothing but bones, no dating, no dna, nothing! Everything else is conjecture. |
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Guesstimates for the age are 2 to 2.8 million years old (but they have very little to go on and are unusually uncertain). What's cool is that they had to have had torches to do this and burial ceremonies imply religion, which pushes the date for artificial light and complex philosophical thought way back. Over the past century our timeline for activities that we think of as uniquely human has lengthened by leaps and bounds. It's become clear that our ancestors spent a loooooooong time acting very much like "modern" humans in basic ways. It makes me wonder how much we're missing and it makes our lightening quick advancement over the past 10,000 years even more remarkable. It could have been a predator. Maybe it killed them and hid them in the cave and never ate them. Let that happen multiple times and you might end with something like this. |