--- title: Found in South Africa: Key Link in Human Evolution? description: Evolution skeptics like to trot out the argument that if Darwin had been right, scientists would have discovered transitional fossils by now — creatures with... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6934299/found-in-south-africa-key-link-in-human-evolution/ author: Michael Lemonick article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2010-04-08T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-23T04:32:46.143Z article:section: Health og:title: Found in South Africa: Key Link in Human Evolution? og:description: Evolution skeptics like to trot out the argument that if Darwin had been right, scientists would have discovered transitional fossils by now — creatures with... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6934299/found-in-south-africa-key-link-in-human-evolution/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8151e18b4a0da49d/698a4e124ee262002b31d402/360_hominid_skeleton_0407.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 360 og:image:height: 203 og:image:alt: 360_hominid_skeleton_0407.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Found in South Africa: Key Link in Human Evolution? twitter:description: Evolution skeptics like to trot out the argument that if Darwin had been right, scientists would have discovered transitional fossils by now — creatures with... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8151e18b4a0da49d/698a4e124ee262002b31d402/360_hominid_skeleton_0407.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) # Found in South Africa: Key Link in Human Evolution? > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=6940abe1-1199-45cf-ad96-a9ba93ba63f4&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) by [Michael Lemonick](https://time.com/author/michael-d-lemonick/) Apr 8, 2010 4:00 AM UTC  A nearly complete fossilized skull of a 11-to-13-year-old boy from a new species of early Australopithecus hominid discovered in the Cradle of Humankind, outside Johannesburg. The skull is approximately 1.9 million years old. A nearly complete fossilized skull of a 11-to-13-year-old boy from a new species of early Australopithecus hominid discovered in the Cradle of Humankind, outside Johannesburg. The skull is approximately 1.9 million years old. Brett Eloff Photography by [Michael Lemonick](https://time.com/author/michael-d-lemonick/) Apr 8, 2010 4:00 AM UTC Evolution skeptics like to trot out the argument that if Darwin had been right, scientists would have discovered transitional fossils by now — creatures with a mix of features from earlier and later species. Since they haven’t, the deniers say, evolution must not be true. The truth is that paleontologists have found transitional species by the score, from many different time periods. But none have materialized from as crucial a point in our evolutionary past as a pair of skeletons whose discovery was announced today by the journal _Science._ [(See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.)](https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379%5F1944416,00.html) The fossils, which have been determined to be of a new species, _Australopithecus sediba,_ were found by Matthew Berger, the 9-year-old son of paleontologist Lee Berger, of South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand. (The elder Berger tried in vain to get the editors of _Science_ to list Matthew as a co-author of the paper.) The bones belong to a preteenage boy and a woman estimated to have been in her late 20s or early 30s; the individuals died at about the same time, and before their remains had fully decomposed, they were entombed in an avalanche of sediment and were nearly perfectly preserved deep in the Malapa cave north of Johannesburg. The _Au. sediba_ bones are important for their vintage — they date back to the moment about 2 million years ago when the genus of human ancestors known as _Australopithecus_ was just giving way to a new group called _Homo_, which would eventually produce _Homo sapiens_, or modern humans. [(See the top 10 animal stories of 2009.)](https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379%5F1944230,00.html) But the new find is perhaps most astonishing for its state of preservation. “These are arguably the most complete hominid skeletons ever discovered,” says Berger. In the field of human origins, that’s huge: many human ancestors have been identified based on only a few bone fragments, and even Berger’s rivals in the intensely competitive field of human paleontology were quick to praise his discovery. “This is an outstanding find, and Lee should really be congratulated,” says Meave Leakey, a paleontologist with the National Museums of Kenya and a member of the world’s most celebrated fossil-hunting family. Other paleontologists have confirmed the dating of the skeletons to somewhere between 1.95 million and 1.78 million years ago, which is another crucial clue to figuring out the new species’ place in our evolutionary story. That’s where things get a lot more contentious. The skeletons show a remarkable mix of primitive and advanced features. The arms, for example, are relatively long and apelike, suggesting _Au. sediba_ was a prodigious tree climber. The hands are apelike in their curvature but surprisingly compact, like a more modern hominid’s. And the longer legs and shortened pelvis are decidedly modern. “They were competent bipeds on the ground,” says Berger. The boy’s skull is a similar mashup of older and newer features. (The woman’s skull is missing.) It is quite small — “like a pinhead on top of the body,” said Berger at a teleconference on Wednesday, April 7 — and would have held a brain hardly bigger than that of _Australopithecus afarensis_, the 3.2 million–year-old species whose best-known example is the celebrated Lucy. But many of the boy’s facial features — a prominent nose, relatively small molars and less pronounced cheekbones — look more like those of later _Homo_ species. As to exactly where _Au. sediba_ fits in human evolution, Berger offers two possibilities: First, it could represent some sort of evolutionary dead end, a species that came and went and had nothing directly to do with modern humans. “It’s like we’re seeing some experiment going on,” he says. Or — and this is the idea he favors — it could be the direct ancestor of _Homo erectus_, which most paleontologists agree is the direct ancestor of _Homo sapiens_. Indeed, Berger’s colleagues had initially planned to assign the new species to _Homo_ but changed their minds, given the specimens’ long arms and the boy’s small brain. “This may be a Rosetta stone for defining what the genus _Homo_ really is,” says Berger. It is at this point that Berger’s claims start to meet a lot of resistance. Leakey, for one, thinks the new species is at best an evolutionary cousin of our ancestors and not a direct ancestor of the species that eventually gave rise to _Homo sapiens_. Tim White, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley, whose team recently discovered a [4.4 million–year-old skeleton of _Ardipithecus ramidus_](https://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1927200,00.html), also believes _Au. sediba_ bears no relationship to modern humans. White points out that drawing strong conclusions about a species based on such a young individual as the fossilized boy is risky, because the skeleton would have still been developing. “The obsession with _Homo_ in their \[paper’s\] title and text is difficult to understand outside of a media context,” White says, referring to the _Science_ study that describes the new species as “_Homo_\-like.” But other paleontologists are inclined to agree with Berger. William Kimbel of Arizona State University’s Institute of Human Origins says Berger’s paper makes the case that the specimens show early evidence of _Homo._ More important, Kimbel says, the fossils reveal the pace of change in early human ancestors. “What it tells us about the early stage of the _Homo_ lineage is, for example, that there were already substantial changes in the face, the teeth and the pelvis, while the brain size and limb proportions were still reasonably limited,” he says. “Having that calendar of change allows us to pose questions about what forces were driving that calendar.” More questions — and answers — will likely arise as Berger and his team continue studying the South African site. They are already in the process of excavating two more fossils, including a second adult woman and a baby. And Berger has brought in what he calls “the best reconstructors in the world” to re-create what the boy’s face would have looked like. “We’ll be telling you a lot more about the species as time goes on,” he says. The team has also found numerous bones of animals, including remnants of saber-toothed cats, that lived alongside the hominids. “The quality of site means I won’t have to speculate much at all about the environment they inhabited or the animals they lived with,” he says. Lastly, Berger suggests the tantalizing possibility of testing the fossils’ DNA. Although the oldest DNA paleontologists have successfully recovered so far dates back only tens of thousands of years, Berger said at a press conference, “We have states of preservation here that are truly extraordinary.” But is it even possible to retrieve 2 million–year-old DNA? It’s a long shot, he says, “but we’re treating it as though maybe it could be preserved.” _— Reported by Alex Perry / Capetown_ [See TIME’s Pictures of the Week.](https://www.time.com/time/picturesoftheweek) [See the Cartoons of the Week.](https://www.time.com/time/cartoonsoftheweek) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6934299/found-in-south-africa-key-link-in-human-evolution/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6934299/found-in-south-africa-key-link-in-human-evolution/"},"headline":"Found in South Africa: Key Link in Human Evolution?","datePublished":"2010-04-08T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-23T04:32:46.143Z","description":"Evolution skeptics like to trot out the argument that if Darwin had been right, scientists would have discovered transitional fossils by now — creatures with...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6934299/found-in-south-africa-key-link-in-human-evolution/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8151e18b4a0da49d/698a4e124ee262002b31d402/360_hominid_skeleton_0407.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michael Lemonick","url":"https://time.com/author/michael-d-lemonick/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8151e18b4a0da49d/698a4e124ee262002b31d402/360_hominid_skeleton_0407.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"360_hominid_skeleton_0407.jpg","caption":"A nearly complete fossilized skull of a 11-to-13-year-old boy from a new species of early Australopithecus hominid discovered in the Cradle of Humankind, outside Johannesburg. 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