MH 1 skull from Malapa, South Africa, lateral detail.
The hominin skeletons from the South African site of Malapa are among the most remarkable discoveries in human evolution. The site preserves a minimum of four hominin skeletons, one adult female, one adolescent male, and two young juveniles, attributed to the species Australopithecus sediba. These creatures lived 2 million years ago, from the enormously important time near the origin of our genus, Homo.
To me, the most wonderful aspect of the discoveries has been the rapid pace of reporting and the open access to the resulting data. The initial reports on the skeletons came out in early 2010, and I posted about them at the time ("What, if anything, is Australopithecus sediba?"). Having more significant science done on the fossils, and being privileged with the chance to see them myself, my opinion about their importance has really grown. I visited the site itself in the summer of 2011 ("A visit to Malapa").
Me at Malapa, South Africa, July 2011.
The Malapa Soft Tissue Project is a unique open science opportunity that is headquartered on its own section of this weblog. Check out the homepage, follow the progress, and contribute your ideas!
You can keep up with my posts on the Malapa hominins by checking on the page with all posts tagged "Malapa" or its RSS feed.
Recent posts about Malapa:
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I announce and describe a project to study possible soft tissue evidence from a 2-million-year-old fossil hominin site.
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The Malapa Soft Tissue Project is an experiment in open science, trying to uncover new facts about a unique discovery.
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Lee Berger took me out to the Malapa site. Here's the story.
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The discovery of the Malapa juvenile skull with some Homo-like features provokes a re-examination of the crania of early Homo.
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The 2010 AAPA meetings featured a fight about the Nariokotome and Gona pelves.
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New skeletons from Malapa, South Africa, present surprising evidence about the evolution of our genus.
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