Bones discovered in an island cave may be a new human species

Please welcome a possible new member to our band of upright apes: Homo luzonensis, whose teeth and bones were discovered in a cave on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. The remains represent a new species, scientists concluded in a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Our genus, the Homo in Homo sapiens, contains multitudes, including the thick-browed yet sophisticated Neanderthals and Homo erectus, a nearly 2 million-year-old species that may be our direct ancestor.

Homo luzonensis is the fourth peculiar and extinct human discovered in this century. Homo floresiensis, so small it was nicknamed “the hobbit,” was found in Indonesia in 2004. Mysterious Denisovans, identified as a species based on a finger bone in 2010, lived in Siberia. Homo naledi skeletons, with strange mixes of modern and primitive features, were pulled out of an African cave in 2013.

Together, these newfound species show that human evolution was highly versatile, as groups adapted to unfamiliar conditions around the world. Modern humans were not alone — our close kin survived until fairly recently. And some of our co-inhabitants possibly embarked on long sea voyages, suggesting similar levels of intelligence.

“The evolution of our evolutionary group, Homo, is getting weirder and weirder,” said paleoanthropologist Rick Potts, who directs the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program and was not involved with this research. Like Homo naledi, these fossils show a jumble of old and new traits, Potts said. Their particular combination suggests these humans were “unknown previously to science.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/04/10/bones-discovered-an-island-cave-may-be-new-human-species/?utm_term=.7e70864c4304&wpisrc=al_news__alert-hse--alert-national&wpmk=1