I'm more interested in what we can learn about these people (using the term for convenience) than what they are called. When did they live? How much genetic distance is there between us and them? Do modern humans carry some of their genes? Could they speak?
Apparently, though, it's not that simple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem
Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easier time communicating. It's political.
The fact that they are capable of producing fertile offspring ?
I'm not certain, but that doesn't sound right to me.
I'm pretty sure Americans and Scots have a far easier time communicating than someone who only speaks Italian and someone who only speaks Spanish.
(Assuming Scottish accents that are reasonably mainstream, not an extreme outlier.)
If I'm wrong, I'd like to be enlightened.
Indeed, the differences between long-separated human populations are such that even non-racist scientists acknowledge subspecies..
http://dienekes.blogspot.sk/2009/09/is-homo-sapiens-polytypi...
There's the suggestion that breeding + fertile offspring is the main concern, but couldn't early humans and neanderthals reproduce, for example? But we definitely consider them separate species.
Dividing lines are hard here I guess.
How on earth he got through that gap I'll never know
Best evidence for the existence of a separate species is recent (late 1800's) genetic admixture to an Abhkazian family.
Sadly, however, the paleogeneticist (retired Oxford prof. Bryan Sykes) who has the samples has so far not yet released any further information on the samples, except that the admixture cannot be matched to any known ethnic.
Perhaps "Previous undiscovered hominid discovered"? But that sounds a bit tautological. "Hominid discovered"? But we had hominids already.
Christoph Zollikofer, an anthropologist at the University of Zurich, said that many of the bone characteristics used to claim the creature as a new species are seen in more primitive animals, and by definition cannot be used to define a new species.
“The few ‘unique’ features that potentially define the new species need further scrutiny, as they may represent individual variation, or variation at the population level,” he said.
Tim White, a paleoanthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley, goes further. “From what is presented here, they belong to a primitive Homo erectus, a species named in the 1800s.”
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“Intentional disposal of rotting corpses by fellow pinheads makes a nice headline, but seems like a stretch to me,” said Jungers. Zollikofer agrees. “The ‘new species’ and ‘dump-the-dead’ claims are clearly for the media. None of them is substantiated by the data presented in the publications,” he said. Hawks is open to other explanations, but said that disposal made sense. “The evidence really tends to exclude the idea that they entered the chamber one at a time, alive, over some time, because we have infants, small children, and very old adults who would almost certainly not have managed to get into this chamber without being deposited there.”
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/10/new-species-o...
Even after a few years, I learned there is always in-fighting when a major discovery like this is made. Regardless of where these bones should be classified, it's an incredible find no matter what - which is sometimes lost in the ensuing fray of dissenting opinions.
Virtually everyone was sceptical of the guy claiming to have developed a form of propulsion powered more or less only by light, but then NASA tested the "EmDrive" and sure enough, it seems like the fundamental idea works. (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futu...)
http://www.nature.com/news/dna-has-a-521-year-half-life-1.11...
Other than that you can perform rough estimates based on the soil it was found in, but those in many cases might be off by quite a bit.
>> Only one line eventually survived to give rise to us
Why? There are tons of species of plants and animals, why did all the human-like (according to the suggestion) species disappear? Why?
Why if they all disappeared yet all other plant and animal species variations lived are there still apes and monkeys today?
Why if life came from amoeba, why is there still amoeba? It's not like there's some source of amoeba's being rained down on the planet every day, why did not all amoeba evolve as well?
Because we didn't descend from apes and monkeys (at least in the modern sense); we descended from some common ancestor that we happen to share with apes and monkeys.
> why did not all amoeba evolve as well?
Because not all amoeba were subjected to the same conditions or experienced the same mutations. Evolution by natural selection is very much a random process; there's no guarantee of any particular outcome.
For those of you interested, the expedition was sponsored by National Geographic, and there was/is a fairly extensive blog (http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/blog/rising-star-expedi...) covering most of the details. When they first started pulling up the fossils, the excitement was palpable - http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/11/11/video-first-....
The expedition occurred nearly two years ago, and there were so many bones still left in the catchment that they left many behind.
Incidentally, though the article says it was scientists who discovered the fossils - they were actually discovered by amateur cavers. The Cradle of Humankind (so named because there are so many similar catchments in the surrounding area) has a massive system of caves and some of the most hardcore amateur cavers in the world.
Indeed, some more details here: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Accountant-found-Homo...
1. Also included: English and Afrikaans. South Africa is a pretty diverse place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_South_Africa
However, only 9.6% of the population use English as their first ('home') language. Zulu has the highest proportion with 22.7%
1. http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/language.htm#distri...
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/10/new-species-o...
Aren't all species of the genus Homo called humans?
Being this calculated about this seemingly arduous task obviously hints at something more advanced than cleaning (i.e. spiritual reasons), I'm just trying to bridge the gap between "calculated rituals" and "random rituals".
I only add this because I got really excited by the title at first.
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/a-new-sp...
Tl;dr: the fossils possess intriguing anatomical features that appear to be (or more probably closely related to) a transition point between Australopithecus and Homo. Any inference of behaviour or even fossil age is speculation. The academia behind it seems to be quite good, but again the media are blowing it out of proportion.
"But we're journalists, so we have no such compunctions."
