Found Homo naledi – human ancestor with a tiny brain – BBC News

The international collaboration of anthropologists under the leadership of Lee Berger of the University of Vituotersrand in South Africa on the basis of a large number of remains found in a cave near Johannesburg, described a new species of human. The excavations were carried out in a cave Rising Star, located 50 kilometers from the capital of South Africa.

According to “Interfax” referring to Science, a new species was named Homo naledi – from the word “star” in the local language Sotho.

There were fragments of a skeleton found in 1550, owned by 15 individuals (this is an exceptionally large amount of material per job compared with normal practice in anthropology). The excavations lasted from 2013 to 2014. During the past year, the team analyzed the anatomical features buried.

Homo naledi superficially similar to the genus Homo sapiens, and differs only in the lack of development of the brain. “This is an incredibly amazing to see the primitive representative of the human race, which has such a small brain,” – said Professor University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Lee Berger.

In turn, the site of the journal Nature said that the cave Rising Star, scientists have found a huge hole in the bottom of which rests a huge number of remains of ancient people to whom Berger Group could not get close because of the almost vertical slopes of the pit and manhole extremely small width – only 20 centimeters. For this reason, a South African scholar appealed to the general public in the global network, and a week later he appeared several volunteers speleologists and fellow paleontologists who have helped scientists to extract the bones from the cave.

According to the authors articles, Homo naledi are close relatives of Homo habilis and human rudolfiyskogo and they claim to be the direct ancestor of our species. This is supported by the fact that his legs “people-stars” were adapted to walking upright, and hands had almost human structure. On the other hand, said to RIA Novosti, a small cranial capacity – about 460 cubic centimeters – and the device of the pelvic bone in common Homo naledi with Australopithecus, and not the people.

Berger admits that Homo naledi may be the oldest representative of our kind, a descendant of the most “advanced” of Australopithecus, as indicated by its unusual anatomy. While such claims can not be done, since this South African palaeontologists to prove that the age of the fossils of more than two million years.

As hopes the South African researcher, his example will encourage other well-known experts in the field of paleoanthropology to the “open science” .