New descriptions of Australopithecus sediba fossils have added to debates about the species’ place in the human lineage. Five papers published today in Science describe the skull, pelvis, hands and feet of the ancient hominin unearthed three years ago in South Africa.

The papers reveal a curious mix of traits, some found in apes and earlier Australopithecus fossils, and others thought to be unique to Homo erectus–the tall, thin-boned hominin that emerged around 2 million years ago in eastern Africa and colonized Europe and Asia–and its descendants, including modern humans.

This mix of features has left palaeoanthropologists unsure of how A. sediba relates to other ancient human relatives. Lee Berger, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, whose team discovered A. sediba, proposes that A. sediba may have evolved into H. erectus, but many other researchers are sceptical of that claim.

Au-spicious beginnings

Berger’s 9-year-old son Matthew happened on the first A. sediba fossil in August 2008, while the two were exploring Malapa, a collapsed cave system not far from the Sterkfontein and Swartkrans sites, which have also yielded a wealth of ancient human remains. The fossil turned out to be a collar bone. The team went on to find […]