Sediba - Lee Berger.mp4

Australopithecus sediba: Early last year, we covered the story of the discovery of new hominid fossils in the Cradle of Humankind. Australopithecus sediba was discovered by the well reputed paleoanthropologist Prof. Lee Berger's son and the story made headlines in 99 countries, the cover of TIME magazine and was one of the most amazing discoveries made using Google Earth. Since then some of the famous people who have visited the fossils include Sir Richard Branson, Richard and Mary Leakey, President Jacob Zuma, Al Gore, and Jane Goodall. This last week, five new papers have been published in the international journal Science based on new evidence related to Au. Sediba. The five papers include an analysis of the most complete hand ever described in an early hominin, the most complete undistorted pelvis (hip bone) ever discovered, the highest resolution and most accurate scan of an early human ancestors brain ever made, new pieces of the foot and ankle skeleton, and one of the most accurate, if not the most accurate dates ever achieved for an early hominin site in Africa. The papers will indicate that it is possibly the best candidate ancestor genus for the genus Homo. About 80 scientists (from the US, UK, Switzerland, Germany, Australia and South Africa) worked on this project. The findings were released internationally on Thursday, 8 September 2011 at a media conference at the Wits Origins Centre where two of the hominid fossils were on display at the same time -- a rare occurrence, not likely to happen again in the near future. We caught up with Prof. Lee Berger there. One of the fossils will be on public display at Maropeng from 9 -- 26 September 2011.

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