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Fascinating find. I guess they'll have a hard time dating the bones, but it would seem they'll be quite old being from South Africa and having a foot indiscernible from modern human would mean a very early rise of bipedality and little selective pressure to change in those bones. root, is a braided stream: a river that divides into channels, only to merge again downstream. Similarly, the various hominin types that inhabited the landscapes of Africa must at some point have diverged from a common ancestor. But then farther down the river of time they may have coalesced again, so that we, at the river’s mouth, carry in us today a bit of East Africa, a bit of South Africa, and a whole lot of history we have no notion of whatsoever. Because one thing is for sure: If we learned about a completely new form of hominin only because a couple of cavers were skinny enough to fit through a crack in a well-explored South African cave, we really don’t have a clue what else might be out there. erger himself thinks the right metaphor for human evolution, instead of a tree branching from a single root, is a braided stream: a river that divides into channels, only to merge again downstream. Similarly, the various hominin types that inhabited the landscapes of Africa must at some point have diverged from a common ancestor. But then farther down the river of time they may have coalesced again, so that we, at the river’s mouth, carry in us today a bit of East Africa, a bit of South Africa, and a whole lot of history we have no notion of whatsoever. Because one thing is for sure: If we learned about a completely new form of hominin only because a couple of cavers were skinny enough to fit through a crack in a well-explored South African cave, we really don’t have a clue what else might be out there.

What is does for me, and no doubt for lots of others here whose opinions I value, is confirm that I want to keep getting up in the morning to see what might be happening next. That this search will intersect with an identification of a recognizable and relatively more recent BF ancestor is not much doubted by me. Well, probably it already has. These are exciting times for those with this interest. Big. Fun.

Hello Cotter, Sorry, won't touch that one

<^^^Cold compresses help with that.> Helps with what, easing an aching head after reading one of your posts?