New species of extinct human found in cave may rewrite history

Now, from the depths of a cave in South Africa, has come a monster cache of hominin bones from a previously unknown early species of our own genus, Homo. “It’s unique,” says Fred Spoor at University College London, who has seen casts of some of the finds. This has never been seen before in such a primitive human, and could have big implications for understanding the origins of modern human behaviour (see “Did ancient hominins bury their dead? “). The first signs that something unusual was unfolding came in October 2013, when Lee Berger at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, advertised for people with good archaeological skills and a lack of claustrophobia to come forward.