First of Our Kind: Could Australopithecus sediba Be Our Long Lost Ancestor? (preview)

Feature Articles | Evolution See Inside

Sensational fossils from South Africa spark debate over how we came to be human

By Kate Wong ?| March 20, 2012?|

New human species from South Africa?Australopithecus sediba?has been held up as the ancestor of our genus, Homo. Image: Brent Stirton/Getty Images

In Brief

• The origin of our genus, Homo, is one of the biggest mysteries facing scholars of human evolution.
• Based on the meager evidence available, scientists have surmised that Homo arose in East Africa, with Lucy?s species, Australopithecus afarensis, giving rise to the founding member of our lineage, Homo habilis.
• Recently discovered fossils from a site northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, could upend that scenario. The fossils represent a pre?viously unknown species of human with an amal?gam of australopithecine and Homo traits that suggest to its discoverers that it could be the ancestor of Homo.

Sometime between three million and two million years ago, perhaps on a primeval sa?vanna in Africa, our ancestors became recognizably human. For more than a million years their australopithecine predecessors?Lucy and her kind, who walked upright like us yet still possessed the stubby legs, tree-climbing hands and small brains of their ape fore?bears??had thrived in and around the continent?s forests and woodlands. But their world was changing. Shifting climate favored the spread of open grasslands, and the early australopithecines gave rise to new lineages. One of these offshoots evolved long legs, toolmaking hands and an enormous brain. This was our genus, Homo, the primate that would rule the planet.

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