Homo naledi was discovered very recently and there is still much debate over where this species fits in our family tree. Compare and contrast the features observed in Homo naledi with other species.

Question

Homo naledi was discovered very recently and there is still much debate over where this species fits in our family tree. Compare and contrast the features observed in Homo naledi with other species. Who is it most similar to? Where would you hypothesize that this species fits?

Answer 1

H. Naledi has long arms and curving fingers, a trait derived from our australopithecene ancestors. It has prominent supraorbital tori (brow ridges) and a skull shaped more like H. habilis than like H. Sapiens. The dates for this species are fairly recent (~335,000-235,000 ya), making it anomalous because they look more like H habilis or H erectus, but they show evidence of having buried their dead. We do not yet have tools for this species so this makes cognitive capacity difficult to measure.