It’s likely that Homo naledi, the ancestor of Homo sapiens recently discovered in the Rising Star cave in South Africa, was adapted both for walking and for climbing trees. That’s the picture emerging from two papers analyzing the feet and hands, respectively, of the new species, published in Nature Communications yesterday, according to a Smithsonian.com story.
Associate Professor of Anthropology Jeremy DeSilva worked on the team that studied the creature’s feet.
Smithsonian.com writes, “The team compared the bones from the South African cave to the foot and leg of Australopithecus sediba, an early human precursor found in a cave just a few miles from Rising Star. But H. naledi’s foot looked more modern, with only subtle differences from humans today, DeSilva says.”
Read the full story, published 10/06/15 by Smithsonian.com.
