Homo naledi’s hands were curved more than modern humans’, indicating that they were good climbers. (Photo: Peter Schmid, CC BY)According to Living on Earth, two years ago, paleoanthropologists climbed deep into South Africa’s Rising Star Cave system and found hundreds of skeletons of what scientists now believe is a new hominin species, called Homo naledi. Living on Earth’s Bobby Bascomb follows one of the spelunking scientists down into the cave’s entrance and hears about the fortuitous find by some of the excavation’s lead researchers, as well as the question of whether or not this species deliberately buried its dead. Marina Elliot (left) and Steven Tucker (third from left), the caver who actually found the fossils originally. (Photo: Bobby Bascomb)
Stream or Download this show.Air Date: Week of September 18, 2015 An Evening with a New Ancestor.NOVA: Dawn of HumanityScience Friday: Meet Homo naledi Another Long-Lost Relative