Fossil Find New Branch in Human Family Tree?

This story was originally published on April 11, 2010. It was updated on July 27, 2010.

Where do we come from? That's often the first question a child asks and it has bedeviled scientists for centuries. Well, today we're a little bit closer to answering it.

As we reported last April, we're a little bit closer to answering that after it was announced - with great fanfare - that the remains of a nine-year-old boy were found in South Africa. He is almost two million years old.

He's being called "Sediba," which means "source," and he stands somewhere on the road between ape and human. He lived in a period when our ancestors climbed down from the trees and started living on the ground. He belongs to a previously unidentified species and anthropologists will be studying him for decades.

Before the announcement, "60 Minutes" and correspondent Bob Simon were given rare access to the discovery, which could be among the most important of our time.

His unveiling was a major happening when he appeared at a press conference in Johannesburg.

Professor Lee Berger, an American paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, named him Australopithecus sediba. And the most astonishing thing about him is his skull: 1.9 million years old and so well preserved that you can count his teeth - so very much like ours.

Web Extra: The 1.9 Millon Year Old Boy
Web Extra: Matthew Berger, The Kid Who Made History
Web Extra: X-Raying The Skull
Web Extra: The Controversy Begins
Wits University's Institute of Human Evolution
Maropeng - The Cradle of Humankind
The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
Becoming Human

Where did Sediba live? In hills just 50 minutes from Johannesburg, in what is called the "Cradle of Human Kind." After all, we humans came from Africa. And scientists there have spent the better part of a century looking for fragments of our earliest ancestors.

"There's probably nowhere else on planet Earth that has a denser, better record of human origins than this land right here," Berger explained.

Yet Berger had been searching for fossils in caves here for years and hadn't found much of anything. So he started a mapping project using a very modern tool: Google Earth. He discovered some 500 caves in the region, which no scientists had ever explored.
"And then I started walking. And I walked a lot. Hundreds of kilometers," he explained.

Berger was walking through the Malapa Nature Reserve with his trusted dog Tau, his nine-year-old son Matthew and his colleague Job Kibii.

They came across a cave and that was the beginning of an astonishing series of events.

"I...literally said, you know, 'Here's the site. There are bones here. Let's look around.' Matthew got up, ran over in that direction. A minute and a half later, he called me," Berger remembered.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page »

[Myopinion046]

Looks like a monkey instead to me.

[fedupn8]

All you creationists are always crying;"science claims to know everything and have all the answers" when actually it is religions that make this arrogant and unfounded claim. You idiots rely on old myths and superstitions while scientists work hard at uncovering what it can but never claims to know anything as absolute truth. I'm sick of you all, just plain tired of it. I do apologize I'm just fired up, I know its not your fault; to a certain extent. You were probably indoctrinated as a child but at some point you got to start thinking for yourselves.

[brooksll]

Science can only deal with things that have already been created.And they do not know all the deeper things just yet and surely will never be able to.But I am certain that the One who created all things has infinite knowledge,understanding,and wisdom and HE only can reveal what we need to know about our earthly home in HIS own due time.Man can be very impatient and cinical when things do not come to them when they want them to,but who are we to criticize anyone who see the evidence of a true Grand Designer all around us.Because I am totally convinced that no one can duplicate life and the things that it takes to sustain life like our Creartor can or explain how we as humans can have love,justice,wisdom,and power without someone from before to show us how to and use such abilites as these.

[ecorob]

This is a skull of some extinct primate. How does that connect it to humans? God put people on the earth finished, complete, done. I believe in evolution when we're talking about gradual adaptation....happens all the time...witnessed results of it in the Galapagos. There is NO PROOF of Darwinian evolution unless you consider racism, eugenics, genocide and things of that ilk. These are bones of a dead ape from a presumably extinct species...accept that and move on. Even Darwin was smart and honest enough to say that he didn't have the proof to back up his theories. It's so sad that we- as a country- have been so indoctrinated so far as to not even mention creation in a piece like this. Species go extinct every day. If we don't start fearing the Lord our God we may be next.

Shame on CBS for not even presenting this as a part of a theory. You alienate every true Christian the moment you contradict the account Genesis gives for how people came to exist on this earth. The little comment as they approached the dig/cave during the show-where they mention the names of a couple of the people along for the find as being Matthew (I believe) and Job - where the commentator says it almost has a 'biblical feel' because of the names just proves the lengths this country and the liberal media have lost sight of what is important

[smitvict]

As a flat earth creationist, I don't believe a word of it (just kidding).

[elderbigggs]

this is either age or man but not AGE-MAN! E-volution is a fraud; it's nothing more than a religion. THE Big Bang didn't evolve!, It just happened! It was created! But let's say that the Big Bang is a part of E-volution, and this did happen. What next? The earth should according to E-volution should be a dead rock within space. Why? Because the E-volutionist have no way of explaining how the earth oceans or better said how did the earth get water or oceans from a dead rock within space?
NO E-VOLUTIONIST HAS AN COMPLETE THEORY ON WATER SEVEN MILES DOWN WHERE PLANTS GROW WITHOUT THE LIGHT OF THE SUN. IT DIDN'T EVOLVE! THEY HAVE NO PROOF, NO FACTS, NO EVIDENCE!

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6734896n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel#ixzz0vUUFEIDN

[slow-news-day]

by displeased August 2, 2010 2:44 PM EDT
But believing in a Great Designer of all living things is based on solid facts not theories.

----------

"Based on", perhaps.

But nothing more. That's the nature of "belief".

[darwufche]

60 Minutes...when old news qualifies for current news.

[rfp1959]

They should have had Andy Rooney give the report on this. One fossil reporting about another.

[AnnieDanny]

I can see where these scientists are interesting in piecing together HUMAN history, and as a result it seems that they are not entirely objective about this discovery. I find that somewhat annoying, but maybe it's the journalism that is skewing the article.

Apparently these skeletons (or "individuals") are primates... monkeys... not humans. If the fossils are a previously unknown and ancient type of monkey, well, why not stick with that rather than get all obsessive about whether they're connected to humans or not? It does seem to me that they get ahead of themselves. But maybe it's the journalists who tend to skew it in that direction. Has anybody noticed that journalists seem to enjoy controversy?

I do think their discovery is fascinating and I hope to read much more about it.

[formrusmcsgt]

He is almost two million years old.
---
Must be tough for "belivers" to see fact after fact contradicting their "how to" manual....it claims that the planet itself is only 6,000 years old.....

[brooksll]

If you are pertaining to the Bible as the "believers" "how to" manual and it's scriptural reference to GOD's 6 creative days which states that 1 day is to God and a thousand years to man(2Pet.3:8)then yes it is tough to see time and again God(Jehovah Ps.83;18)being dishonored in that way.Evolution and its claimed support from the fossil records still is only a theory.Even evolutionists and scientists do not all agree on this subject.But believing in a Great Designer of all living things is based on solid facts not theories.The Bible does not claim that the earth is only six thousand years old but that God began creating the heavens and the earth in that time span.The earth was "formless and waste" before God started to create it to be inhabited.It also does not say how long the earth stood that way so no doubt the earth could be millions of years old since God Himself is eternal.But you also have to reason that noone or nothing could live in the earth's unprepared state,therefore,how could there be evidence that life was around on earth at that time or 2 million years ago.Read the Genesis account in this light and see if your opinion remains the same.I hope to God you will see things His way and thru His eyes and not thru the eyes of an imperfect man.His holy spirit is powerful and it can help you come up with the right conclusion if you let it.(Gen.1:31)

[displeased]

But believing in a Great Designer of all living things is based on solid facts not theories.
by brooksll August 2, 2010 2:22 PM EDT


You get your "solid facts" from the bible, right? I read most of the bible. No evidence found. Let me know if you actually SEE this supernatural evidence you believe in.