Previously unknown Homonin found in South African cave.

Just found this on john hawks' blog,

Rising Star: In the hot seat
Sat, 2013-11-16 02:16 -- John Hawks
My first Rising Star Expedition update has been posted on the expedition blog: "In the hot seat".
I’ve had an extraordinary number of new fossils pass through my hands in the last four days. But here’s what finally brought me to tears: Our young scientists and cavers running up to the command center, cranking up the generator, so they could do a spontaneous Skype call to a third grade class in Rhode Island.
Keep watching.
The post has already gotten some attention, and if you're looking for a good news story on yesterday's events at the site, I recommend this one from Alan Boyle: "Cave women unearth skull of unknown human ancestor". Yes, the headline is awful for these young scientists, but the story really gives a good overview of what is going on.
But of course the best source is the Rising Star Expedition blog, and the Twitter updates from @johnhawks and @LeeRBerger

johnhawks.net...

punkinworks10

Huh?

reply to post by punkinworks10


I would be curious to see if there were any potential relationship to the "red deer people" found in China a few years back. Geographically it's a long shot and I'm probably getting way ahead of myself without any dates being provided but the potential for it to give some context to other finds is intriguing.

A little about the Rising Star Expedition,

The Rising Star Expedition was rapidly assembled during October 2013 to recover ancient hominid fossils discovered deep in a South African cave.

With remains from multiple individuals already identified, the find could add significantly to our understanding of human evolution.

With the bones hidden 30 meters underground beyond obstacles including a dangerous squeeze only 18 cm wide, it was necessary to assemble a select team of capable researchers with excavation experience and the unlikely caving skills and particular size required to reach the inner chamber.

Directed by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Lee Berger, and supported by cavers from the Speleological Exploration Club of South Africa, these researchers are now daily bringing up hominid fossils for experts on the surface to begin analyzing.

For an unprecedented view into this rare discovery, follow along with daily updates here and on Twitter:
@LeeRBerger
@JohnHawks

newswatch.nationalgeographic.com...

Yesterday they removed a complete skull from the cave.
One of the neat things about the work at this site is that it is an extremely open process, with information being made available immediately.

reply to post by peter vlar


That's a valid question. Peter, as it is now confirmed that there was a back migration into Africa by a Eurasian population.

Genome Biology and Evolution 2013 Oct 25.

Apparent Variation in Neanderthal Admixture among African Populations is Consistent with Gene Flow from non-African Populations. 

Shuoguo Wang, Joseph Lachance, Sarah Tishkoff, Jody Hey, and Jinchuan Xing

Abstract 

Recent studies have found evidence of introgression from Neanderthals into modern humans outside of sub-Saharan Africa. Given the geographic range of Neanderthals, the findings have been interpreted as evidence of gene exchange between Neanderthals and the modern humans descended from the Out-of-Africa (OOA) migration. Here we examine an alternative interpretation in which the introgression occurred earlier within Africa, between ancestors or relatives of Neanderthals and a subset of African modern humans who were the ancestors of those involved in the OOA migration. Under the alternative model, if the population structure among present-day Africans predates the OOA migration, we might find some African populations show a signal of Neanderthal introgression while others do not. To test this alternative model we compiled a whole-genome data set including 38 sub-Saharan Africans from eight populations and 25 non-African individuals from five populations. We assessed differences in the amount of Neanderthal-like SNP alleles among these populations and observed up to 1.5% difference in the number of Neanderthal-like alleles among African populations. Further analyses suggest that these differences are likely due to recent non-African admixture in these populations. After accounting for recent non-African admixture, our results do not support the alternative model of older (e.g., >100 kya) admixture between modern human and Neanderthal-like hominid within Africa

anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org...

I know that the red deer cave people are fairly recent, and they don't dates on the stuff from the cave yet. But there is a commonality between the two, cannibalism. At some of the other caves near rising star, there are clear signs of cannibalism, and one of the red deer individuals was eaten.

The expedition website reports findings numbering in the severals of individuals found.

It's quite an exciting site; with the openness of the expedition, as well as the wealth of the findings.

It'll be interesting to see where these hominin fit in with our current models, and I'm curious as to whether these are all the same, or if they're a diverse deposit spanning over a long time.

I'm personally in hopes of a diverse deposit spanning millions of years. We'll learn sure enough when papers are posted some time this next year.

reply to post by punkinworks10


Just out of curiosity, which site did you pull the abstract from? Just curious if its one of the ones that likes charging my credit card once a year so I can read through the full paper. As always, you bring me new and fascinating things to read so thank you.

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


One has to wonder if they might have found the elusive African specific archaic, who's traces have been found in modern africans.

peter vlar
reply to post by punkinworks10

 

Just out of curiosity, which site did you pull the abstract from? Just curious if its one of the ones that likes charging my credit card once a year so I can read through the full paper. As always, you bring me new and fascinating things to read so thank you.

Peter
I edited that post and added the link to the discussion of it at anthropogenisis,
but here is the link to the pdf
gbe.oxfordjournals.org...

reply to post by punkinworks10


Outstanding! Thanks for that.

reply to post by punkinworks10


If this fossil assemblage turns out to be a new species, then the discoverer(s) gets naming rights. Lucky them!

Glad to see some familiar faces popping their heads in this thread, btw

This topic is ALWAYS one of interest to me since I had wanted (among a choice of 3 vocations) to be an archeologist when I was young.

That being said, am I missing something here? The link took me to a site with several similar articles. I don't have time for that. Then I found (through another search) the applicable article/video, but it showed no skull--it showed a mandible. I wanted to see the skull being retrieved since that is what your title says. Then I found the video with the skull being retrieved (via another search), but I still couldn't see the skull!!!! WHAT SKULL?? Imo, it's your thread, therefore your responsibility to provide an adequate link. I can pick and choose and search and search and search on my own--which I did and am now rather aggravated about it!

I do hope more comes to light from this dig, and I certainly hope 'we' can actually SEE what they are bringing up out of the site.

In all fairness to you, perhaps you were just excited about the whole thing and wanted to include ALL links concerning the dig; however say "skull found" to people like me then not show the same...is just plain mean!

Nacirema
reply to post by punkinworks10

 

If this fossil assemblage turns out to be a new species, then the discoverer(s) gets naming rights. Lucky them!

If it was me, I'd name it "Reese's species."

Harte

reply to post by Habit4ming

You'd think that there would by at some preliminary photos.
The skull was just retrieved day before yesterday, as per the Nat geo project blog.
They also go on to say that due to it's condition it has been put into special storage conditions till it's stable enough for study.
This site sounds like it's going to produce some fantastic specimens, so just be patient.

Here is a vid of the cavers

www.youtube.com...

As of today they are up to 371 fossil hominins discovered so far. The real cool part is the vast array of fossils includes some parts never seen before due to being missing from previously recovered specimens. Here's a pretty good article - newswatch.nationalgeographic.com...