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Nine-Year-Old Fossil Hunter Finds New Species of Human Ancestor
By Meg Tirrell
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?p...d=ioBbT3Os4dKA
April 8 (Bloomberg) -- A 9-year-old boy who wandered from his father’s side may have opened a new chapter in the evolutionary story of mankind when he found the fossilized collarbone of a child who lived almost 2 million years ago.
Matthew Berger was about 15 meters (49 feet) from his dad, Lee, a paleontologist working at the archeological dig in South Africa known as the Cradle of Humankind, when he called out, his father said during a briefing yesterday with reporters.
“Dad, I found a fossil,” the youngster said. The bone was just “sticking out of the rock,” the elder Berger said. Scientists now suspect Matthew discovered a new species of hominid, the name for humans and their extinct ancestors, that lived just prior to the historical development of modern man. Researchers reported finding partial skeletons of the male child and an adult female who lived 1.78 million to 1.95 million years ago in two papers published today in the journal Science.
By Meg Tirrell
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?p...d=ioBbT3Os4dKA
April 8 (Bloomberg) -- A 9-year-old boy who wandered from his father’s side may have opened a new chapter in the evolutionary story of mankind when he found the fossilized collarbone of a child who lived almost 2 million years ago.
Matthew Berger was about 15 meters (49 feet) from his dad, Lee, a paleontologist working at the archeological dig in South Africa known as the Cradle of Humankind, when he called out, his father said during a briefing yesterday with reporters.
“Dad, I found a fossil,” the youngster said. The bone was just “sticking out of the rock,” the elder Berger said. Scientists now suspect Matthew discovered a new species of hominid, the name for humans and their extinct ancestors, that lived just prior to the historical development of modern man. Researchers reported finding partial skeletons of the male child and an adult female who lived 1.78 million to 1.95 million years ago in two papers published today in the journal Science.