 Brett Eloff / Courtesy of Lee Berger, Univ. of the Witwatersrand |
Rock partially encases the cranium of a juvenile male representing the species designated Australopithecus sediba. The skull was found in a South African cave. |
Well-preserved fossils found in a South African cave pit mark an important transition between the 3.2 million-year-old pre-human known as Lucy and our own branch of the evolutionary family tree. That much, anthropologists can agree on. But exactly where do they fit in that transition? That’s the subject of a high-profile debate.
It may be tempting to call these fossils a “missing link,” as some of the leaked news reports did earlier this week. But scientists say that’s too simplistic a term for what the bones signify.
There are so many elements to the tale that it’s hard to know where to start. Here are the main points relating to the find, announced today by the journal Science:
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