Best candidate for homo ancestor found, according to BBC News 8 April 2010, and Science, vol. 328, p154 and p195, 9 April 2010. Palaeontologists in South Africa have found two partial skeletons of a new species of Australopithecus that “may be the best candidate yet for the immediate ancestor of our genus, Homo.” They have been given the name Australopithecus sediba and have been dated as being 2 million years old. The bones are from two individuals: a juvenile of estimated age 11 to 12, and an adult female. The juvenile partial skeleton includes a large part of a skull, along with parts of the right arm and leg, pieces of pelvis, a few vertebrae and rib fragments and one toe and one finger. The adult bones include the right arm and shoulder, and small pieces of bone from around the knees ankles and feet. From these bones the researchers concluded the creature was about 1.3m tall with very long arms, curved fingers and a small brain of about 420 cubic centimetre – features similar to other Australopithecines, but had smaller teeth, longer legs, hip bones more suited to upright stance than other Australopithecines. Because of the teeth, hips and legs some evolutionary biologists have suggested the fossils should be classified as a Homo species. Colin Groves of Australian National University commented: “In fact, the authors (of the report in Science) themselves pointed to certain similarities with early Homo, seeming even to admit that the predominance of its features were with Homo, only the small cranial capacity being really an “australopithecine” feature,” he commented. But we now know of Homo floresiensis (“the Hobbit”) with the cranial capacity more or less the same as the new species.”
Editorial Comment: As we have said many times, the name Australopithecus means “southern ape”. Therefore, by their own admission, these scientists have found a dead ape. The fact that Australopithecines are extinct does not mean they evolved into humans. Furthermore, if Colin Groves thinks this new fossil is similar to the Hobbit, then that is further confirmation of our Creation Research prediction that the Hobbit is really an ape, rather than a human. (Ref. anthropology, hominid, ape-man)
Evidence News, 28 April 2010