For hundreds of thousands of years, the fossil of a small child has been hidden in the darkness of South Africa’s Rising Star cave. The skull, from a child that was 4 to 6 years old at the time of death, is the first known to belong to an ancient human relative called Homo naledi.
The child likely lived between 236,000 and 335,000 years ago, which is when other remains from the cave have been dated.
“This is the first partial skull of a child of Homo naledi yet recovered and this begins to give us insight into all stages of life of this remarkable species,” said Juliet Brophy, lead author of the study analyzing the skull, in a statement. Brophy is an associate professor at Louisiana State University and honorary research affiliate at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Read full article at: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/04/world/homo-naledi-child-fossil-scn/index.html