There is also an Italian contribution to the international team made up by more than 50 scholars who described Homo naledi, the new hominin species discovered in South Africa. The discovery has been announced today by the University of Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation.
Dr Damiano Marchi, an anthropologist at the Department of Biology of the University of Pisa, was part of the international team lead by Prof. Lee Berger. Dr Marchi in particular studied the thigh and leg of the new hominin with the aim of understanding the locomotory characteristics of Homo naledi. From the analysis it emerged that Homo naledi had a unique lower limb, different from all the other hominins found till now.
However, the new species shows skeletal traits that could indicate adaptation to striding gait and possibly running, similar to modern humans. Dr. Marchi is co-author of the paper which describes the new species, published on the journal "eLife" and will be first author on the paper regarding the description of the thigh and leg which will be published in a special issue of the "Journal of Human Evolution", one of the leading journal in palaeoanthropology.
"Acknowledging the enormous quantity of skeletal material available and the necessity of planning a timely and scientifically accurate study of it – says Dr Marchi – Prof. Berger organized a unique international workshop to study and describe the recently discovered fossil hominin material. Applicants from all over the world answered the call and I was the only Italian selected, thanks to my expertise on the biomechanics and functional morphology of human and nonhuman primate postcranial skeleton, which I use to create models to interpret early hominin locomotion."
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Official press release by University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University), National Geographic Society and South African Department of Science and Technology/ National Research Foundation (DST/NRF) available here.
Homo naledi on National Geographic.
Images:
1. A reconstruction of Homo naledi's head by paleoartist John Gurche, who spent some 700 hours recreating the head from bone scans. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife. Photo by Mark Thiessen/National Geographic
2. Prof. Damiano Marchi