...some scientists not involved in the study said there is not enough evidence to claim that the new findings, together with the 1972 skull, represent a distinct Homo species. Lee Berger, paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, called this argument based on associations of a few fossils "weak." He said in an e-mail that the fossils should also be compared to other potential human ancestors, such as Australopithecus africanus and Australopithecus sediba.
"East Africa is not an island," Berger said. "One must use the whole continent's evidence for human origins in such an important argument as the question of the origins of the genus Homo."
Whether we descended from the species of these ancient creatures is unknown. There could be some other, yet undiscovered species from around this time that is a more probable ancestor.
Bernard Wood predicts, in an accompanying article in Nature, that by 2064, "researchers will view our current hypotheses about this phase of human evolution as remarkably simplistic."
lightyears.blogs.cnn.com |
