Examining Ancient Fossils for Clues to Human Origins

Examining Ancient Fossils for Clues to Human Origins Several papers published this week in the journal Science look at fossilized bones from the hands, feet, pelvis, and other parts of the prehistoric hominid Australopithecus sediba. And I know extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but I do think it's fair to say in this case where, you know, our field of paleoanthropology is often justifiably accused of being a science of fragments due to the nature of the fossil records, that these two skeletons are areas of anatomy that really we haven't seen in this sort of condition before. It's important to understand when we say the Homo-like condition to possibly sort of exclude from the discussion for a moment things like Homo habilis and rudolfensis but talk about later Homo, things that we would more generally agree are definitively in the genus, things like Homo erectus and Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. But, Dr. Wood, you're saying let's wait a little bit more, that we need to find new fossils that match this one? We're talking this hour about history of the human - well, Homo sapiens with this finding of Australopithecus sediba in South Africa, talking with Lee Berger, from Johannesburg at the University of Witwatersrand, and with Bernard Wood, who is at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian in Washington.