#The missing link found manual

#The missing link found manual

Rather than risking damaging the fossils, researchers prepared them virtually after scanning with a micro-CT scanner at the University of the Witwatersrand, thus removing the risk of damaging the closely positioned, delicate bones during manual preparation. The vertebrae described in the present study were recovered in a consolidated cement-like rock, known as breccia, in near articulation.

Malapa is the site where, in 2008, Lee Berger from the University of the Witwatersrand and his then nine-year old son, Matthew, discovered the first remains of what would be a new species of ancient human relative named Australopithecus sediba.įossils from the site have been dated to approximately two million years before present. Researchers discovered the fossils in 2015 during excavations of a mining trackway running next to the site of Malapa in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, just northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. “Issa walked somewhat like a human, but could climb like an ape.”

The recovery of new lumbar vertebrae from the lower back of a single individual of the human relative, Australopithecus sediba, and portions of other vertebrae of the same female from Malapa, South Africa, together with previously discovered vertebrae, form one of the most complete lower backs ever discovered in the early hominid record. New lower back fossils are the “missing link” that settles a decades old debate proving early hominins used their upper limbs to climb like apes and their lower limbs to walk like humans. University New York University, Stony Brook University, Texas A&M University