(CNN)Early humans were still swinging from trees two million years ago, scientists have said, after confirming a set of contentious fossils represents a "missing link" in humanity's family tree. "One possible explanation for their entry into the cave could have been that they needed water," said Dirks. And Ardi (Ardipithecus ramidus) was a sensation when scientists unveiled her in 2009, suggesting that some enduring notions about the origin of bipedalism and the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees might be wrong. This can only improve the quality of the science that comes out of the project and may well inspire other teams to be more forthcoming with their own data. I’m just awed and delighted by the opportunity this discovery affords to see a human species from so very long ago in such vivid detail—whether it is the elusive ancestor of Homo, or a creature from a parallel lineage that reveals another way of being human and could perhaps elucidate why our line succeeded where others failed. ", The secret to making a scientific discovery. Australopithecus sediba's hands and feet, for instance, show it was spending a good amount of time climbing in trees. "If those events had occurred instead, our science would not know about Au. And at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society in Honolulu earlier this month, Rachelle Keeling of the University of the Witwatersrand reported that molecular imaging of what appears to be skin preserved on some of the bones supports that interpretation. Au. Furthermore, conditions at the site, which was once a 30- to 50-meter-deep underground cavern with a shallow freshwater pool at the bottom, apparently allowed for the preservation of some very unusual features. Think another hominin discovery is more important than this one? They show that early humans of the period "spent significant time climbing in trees, perhaps for foraging and protection from predators," according to the study in the journal "Paleoanthropology.". Malapa is in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. Check, check, check. Specimens that preserve multiple skeletal elements? But I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that A. sediba may just be the most important hominin (modern humans and their extinct relatives) discovery yet. That’s my case. More recently, the 18,000-year-old Flores hobbit (Homo floresiensis), announced in 2004, made waves with her diminutive proportions and other traits that challenge longstanding ideas about hominin adaptation and biogeography. Their discovery set off years of debate in the scientific community, with some rejecting the idea that they were from a previously undiscovered species with close links to the homo genus and others floating the idea that they were from two different species altogether. "This larger picture sheds light on the lifeways of A. sediba and also on a major transition in hominin evolution," said lead researcher Scott Williams of New York University. "To explain the fossil assemblage and their well-preserved state, we would speculate that perhaps at the time of their death, the area in which sediba lived experienced a severe drought.…Animals may have smelled the water, ventured in too deep, fallen down hidden shafts in the pitch dark, or got lost and died.". The find was made August 15, 2008, but first announced to the public on April 8, 2010 in the journal Science. OK, I’m more than 1,000 words into this post and I’ve still barely scratched the surface of what makes the A. sediba find so extraordinary. The teeth of the young male were found to have tartar on them, which the research team was able to analyze for clues to what he ate in his final days. The Malapa site, South Africa's "Cradle of Humankind," was famously discovered by accident by nine-year-old Matthew Berger as he chased after his dog. Second—and this may sound a little insidery, but it’s critical--the way Berger and his collaborators are studying the finds and disseminating what they learn represents a real departure from the cloak-and-dagger manner in which paleoanthropological investigations often proceed. Australopithecus means "southern ape," and is a group that includes the iconic fossil Lucy, while sediba means "wellspring" in the South African language Sotho. AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER JOE (Photo credit should read ALEXANDER JOE/AFP/Getty Images), Two partial australopith skeletons -- a male and a female - were found in 2008 at a collapsed cave in Malapa, in South Africa's "Cradle of Humankind.". In particular, it had a somewhat prominent nose and strong hands that could have made and used stone tools (there is as yet no evidence that this hominid used fire). Remains of multiple, coeval individuals (important for understanding variation within a species)?

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