A new human relative

摘要

Meet Australopithecus sediba, which lived about 2m years ago. Parts of six A. sediba skeletons were found in 2008 near Malapa, South Africa, by a team led by Lee Berger of the University of Witwatersrand. The three most complete ones were used to make this reconstruction, published in this week's Science. A set of accompanying papers describe the fossils and speculate about their significance. A. sediba, like other species of Australopithecus, displays a mixture of features that reflect its simian past and anticipate its human future.