https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/29/south-africa-fossils-origins-of-humankind-study/
Washington Post
The study of fossils from the Sterkfontein Caves, which yielded the near-complete skull of a cave woman nicknamed Mrs. Ples, found they date back 3.4 million to 3.6 million years.
The findings suggest hominins in South Africa existed around the same time as others in East Africa, such as the renowned 3.2-million-year-old skeleton Lucy, which was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia. East Africa was long considered the more likely origin of the earliest hominin that eventually evolved into the Homo genus we belong to, so this study reignites the debate on the origins of modern humans.
Hundreds of Australopithecus fossils of human ancestors have been found at the Sterkfontein Caves, at a UNESCO World Heritage site known as the Cradle of Humankind. The site, northwest of Johannesburg, was home to the discovery of the first adult Australopithecus, an ancient hominin, in 1936.
The caves have more Australopithecus fossils than anywhere else in the world, according to Darryl Granger, an author of the new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“But it’s hard to get a good date on them,” Granger, a professor at Purdue University who specializes in dating geologic deposits, said in a statement. His team’s findings show that “these fossils are old — much older than we originally thought,” he added.
The researchers, including experts from Johannesburg and France, examined radioactive…
