New Species of Homo Discovered: Homo naledi

Thanks for the technical paper link, Percy. All I had see to date was a video on facebook that showed the difficulty of navigating the cave.The page link is: This Face Changes the Human Story. But How?

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The bones were superbly preserved, and from the duplication of body parts, it soon became clear that there was not one skeleton in the cave, but two, then three, then five ... then so many it was hard to keep a clear count. ...

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There were some 1,550 specimens in all, representing at least 15 individuals. Skulls. Jaws. Ribs. Dozens of teeth. A nearly complete foot. A hand, virtually every bone intact, arranged as in life. Minuscule bones of the inner ear. Elderly adults. Juveniles. Infants, identified by their thimble-size vertebrae. Parts of the skeletons looked astonishingly modern. But others were just as astonishingly primitivein some cases, even more apelike than the australopithecines. We’ve found a most remarkable creature, Berger said. His grin went nearly to his ears.

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... But these teeth weren’t like anything the scientists in the tooth booth had ever seen. Some features were astonishingly humanlikethe molar crowns were small, for instance, with five cusps like ours. But the premolar roots were weirdly primitive. ...

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The same schizoid pattern was popping up at the other tables. A fully modern hand sported wackily curved fingers, fit for a creature climbing trees. The shoulders were apish too, and the widely flaring blades of the pelvis were as primitive as Lucy’sbut the bottom of the same pelvis looked like a modern human’s. The leg bones started out shaped like an australopithecine’s but gathered modernity as they descended toward the ground. The feet were virtually indistinguishable from our own.

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When you read the articles and see repeated references to the fossils showing a mixture of primitive and derived characteristics, you can see the evolution of traits found in our skeletons ... and when you go to the technical paper these aspects are laid out in detail.You'll have to page down to the video. It also says, "The NOVA/National Geographic Special, Dawn of Humanity, premieres Sept. 16, 2015, at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on PBS in the United States and is streaming online now.Another good source is: South African Cave Yields Strange Bones Of Early Human-Like Species

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He notes that only a small section of the cave chamber has been excavated, and it looks like many more bones are down there.

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"There is the potential for thousands of specimens in that cave," says Wood. "Intellectually, it's a real puzzle. And I think it's going to take scientists quite a time to get their heads around what the real significance of these discoveries is."

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So ... watch this space, more to come ...The combination of derived modern traits with primitive ancestral traits is what shows this to be a transitional species, fitting between Australopithicus and Homosapien fossils. It will be interesting to see how they date this find.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : added comment

And what about the ones that did not fossilize? The bones in this cave are not fossilized ...How can some bones fossilize and some bones not fossilize when they are all subjected to the same flood condition that you claim universally causes (somehow) the fossilization.Enjoy

Time.The first skull is a modern chimpanzee skull for comparison, the rest are arranged chronologically from oldest to youngest.29 Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1

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29 Evidences for Macroevolution
Part 1:
The Unique Universal Phylogenetic Tree

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Figure 1.4.4. Fossil hominid skulls. Some of the figures have been modified for ease of comparison (only left-right mirroring or removal of a jawbone). (Images 2000 Smithsonian Institution.)

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(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
(C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
(H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
(I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
(J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
(K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
(L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
(M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
(N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

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Note that (B) and (C) are the same species\age, as are (D) and (E); that (J), (K) and (L) are all neanders, and that (M) is archaic human while (N) is modern human.Note further that any denial of the ages shown is empty until you have explained the evidence in Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 for an old earth and the methods of dating artifacts.The fossils sorted by age is what shows the evolutionary trending from more ape-like to modern human, it is not arbitrary, artificial or just some whim of some purported "overzealous evolutionist" as anyone with the same evidence, derived independently for each skull, would place them in the same order.Until we have better dates for Homo naledi all we can say is that they appear to be between (C) and (D) at this time.Finally please note that this is not intended as a linear line of development, rather it is a sampling of the hominids from those periods, and like the neanders, some could be cousins. And those cousins may also have interbred as we now know happened with neanders.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .