Palaeontology

Potential new human species discovered

By T.K. Randall
June 21, 2014

Image: Cro-Magnon Artists Painting Woolly Mammoths in Font-de-Gaume
Credit: Charles Robert Knight (1920) / (PD) Copyright Expired In what could be one of the most significant paleoanthropological discoveries ever made, Australian researcher Darren Curnoe and his colleagues believe that they may have uncovered evidence of a previously undiscovered species of human that lived alongside our ancestors as recently as 11,000 years ago.

Known as the "Red Deer Cave people", these hominids were extremely similar to modern humans but with some significant physical differences.The idea that they could have survived until so recently, even outliving the Neanderthals, has raised an array of questions about how these ancient people would have lived, how they interacted with humans and what it was that caused them to die out.

"The fossils just don't fit with the dominant view in science at the moment about who was around 11,000 years ago or 14,000 years ago, how they relate to us, and how we think of ourselves as humans in relation to nature," said Curnoe.

"We tend to think of ourselves as special. So it raises some pretty deep and challenging questions."

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Tags: Human, Red Deer Cave People