First the Primates , then the Hominids who began to walk on two legs, then again the Australopithecus - like Lucy - and finally the Homo .
A new discovery, also dated 2015, will perhaps lead to a partial revision of this succession.
Already in 2013 , in South Africa , a vast cave complex called Rising Star Cave had been discovered.
Inside there were 1,500 fossil records , which were cataloged and studied in the following months.
In an article published on eLife in September 2015 the results of this large study were presented. Which can be summarized as follows:a new element must be introduced into the human evolutionary chain, which we can call Homo Naledi .
The name, and in particular the word naledi, derives from the place where it was found, since in the local indigenous language that term means "star", with reference to the name of the caves.
BETWEEN AUSTRALOPITHECAN AND HOMO
The artifacts found belong to 15 different specimens and they are very numerous. In general, this is the most substantial discovery ever in the evolutionary field. Scholars say that this new species could be a kind of passageway from Australopithecus to Homo .
About 150 centimeters tall, Homo Naledi it still had the small brain of its ancestor but skull, jaw and teeth similar to that of its descendant.
Also in other elements - such as the ribcage, hands and lower limbs - this ambiguity between the two other known species remains evident.
Discovered in the area of the famous Cradle of Humanity by Rick Hunte r and Steven Tucker , the fossils were analyzed by an international team.
Leading it was called Lee Berger , paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.