2-million-year-old fossils offer look at human evolution
Scientists say the skeletons of a woman and boy could be one of the most important finds of recent times. A discovery by a 9-year-old led to finding the pair, dubbed Australopithecus sediba. The middle-aged woman and the young boy, perhaps her son or simply another member of her tribe, were out hunting on the African plains or maybe looking for water in the midst of a drought when they fell into a sinkhole, dying almost instantly. Shortly thereafter, a monsoon or a flood washed them into a deeper basin, where they were covered with mud and rapidly fossilized. In 2008, nearly 2 million years later, another boy, 9-year-old Matthew Berger, discovered part of their skeletons outside the Malapa cave north of Johannesburg, South Africa, a find that experts have dubbed one of the most important of recent times.