DIGITAL LITERACY AND INFORMATION FLUENCY

HOMO NALEDI

1.ASK

• who discovered homo Naledi?
• who is homo Naledi?
• where does homo Naledi fit within the human lineage?
• Does this fossil prove that humans originated in South Africa?
• How is homo Naledi estimated to be?

2. ACQUIRE

 http://ewn.co.za/features/Naledi/whois-Naledi/html
 D. McKenzie & H. Wende. Homo Naledi. New species of human ancestor discovered. CNN updated 1640(GMT) September 10, 2015

3. ANALYSE

The astonishing find was made initially by amateur cavers and thought at the time to be a single hominid skeleton. The fossils were retrieved by a band of diminutive paleoanthropologists, all women, recruited for their size.          
“Naledi” means star in the Sesotho language and is a reference to the Rising Star cave system that includes the chamber, known as the Dinaledi Chamber, where the fossils were found. The circuitous and difficult passage to the chamber narrows at one point to a bare seven inches.

HOMO NALEDI: A new species

In addition to identifying an entirely new species in the genus Homo, the collections of fossils, which bear no marks from predators or scavengers, are strong evidence that HOMO NALEDI was deliberately interring its dead, according to Hawks, a UW-Madison professor of anthropology.
 ( http://news.wisc.edu/naledi/#sthash.x2fXECcX.dpuf)

4. APPLY

The discovery of homo Naledi
Late one Friday night in September 2013, two cavers were spelunking through the pitch-black Rising Star caves in the Cradle of Humankind when they found an entrance to an as yet undiscovered chamber towards the back of the system.
The explorers, Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker, noticed fossils visible on the chamber floor and took some quick photographs, unaware of the significance of what they had stumbled upon. Hunter and Tucker showed the photographs to fellow caver and geologist Pedro Boschoff, who recognised the potential significance of the find and alerted Professor Lee Berger.
who is Homo Naledi
Homo Naledi is believed to be an entirely new species of human relative. That alone makes the discovery remarkable. But what makes it truly special is what it could tell us about the hominid's behaviour.

Homo Naledi in the human lineage

Homo Naledi shares some characters with australopiths, and other characters with species of early Homosuch as H. habilis and H. erectus, it is possible that this new species may be rooted in the initial origin and diversification of the genus Homo.
Does the fossil prove the origination is from South Africa
 Homo Naledi existed in South Africa, and left some spectacular traces of their passing that we are only now coming to grips with.
Homo Naledi estimated age
Homo Naledi was a smallish hominid that researchers believed roamed the Cradle of Humankind somewhere between one and three million years ago. Scientists don’t yet know for sure how old the fossils unearthed in the Dinaledi Chamber are, so it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where this diminutive species fits into the history of evolution.

5.APPLY

Upon all the research and discoveries, the actual truth of the human evolution is still pending thats is why the discovery of Homo Naledi is magnificent. Not only does it introduce us to a human relative we had no idea existed, it promises to shake up the entire evolution tree. And in doing so, it helps us better understand our past and allows us to ask questions about one of the most seductive mysteries of all: what marks the birth of human consciousness?