Fossils of early human ancestors called the 'Cradle of Humankind' in South Africa may be more than a million years older than previously thought, according to a new study.
The Sterkfontein Caves in Johannesburg contain more than a third of the world's early hominid fossils with important links in the evolutionary chain to modern humans.
Sterkfontein was made famous by the discovery of the first adult Australopithecus, an ancient hominin, by Robert Broom in 1936.
It had previously been theorised that the Australopithecus-bearing cave sediments were between 2 million and 2.5 million years old.
However, new analysis has revealed that the sediments date from about 3.4 to 3.7 million years old, placing these fossils toward the beginning of the Australopithecus era, rather than near the end.
This would make them older than the world’s most famous Australopithecus fossil called Lucy (photo below) also known as Dinkinesh, which is 3.2 million years old.
The study pushes back the timeline for Australopithecus africanus by about a million years, and overturns the long-held concept that South African Australopithecus is a younger offshoot of East African Australopithecus afarensis
