The Announcement that skeletons found in South Africa belong to a new species of Man is premature. They were found in a cave near Johannesburg. The "new species" was named Australopithecus sediba. It was claimed to be the "rosetta stone" into the past. They were also the most complete skeletons ever discovered. The creatures walked upright, had long arms and powerful hands. Unfortunately, they were small brained.
Paleoanthropologists not involved in the find say the name chosen is just a "wastebasket" category. They are not ancestors of Man. Furthermore, some animals in the species could have had larger or smaller brains. It could still be transitional in evolution to Man, but very distant.
It may fit into Homo. Perhaps it is a sister species to Homo habilis. The brain size of Australopithecus sediba is the same as Homo floresiensis, the Hobbit, of Indonesia. The features in sediba are similar to those in other Homo species. Paleoanthropologists put very early finds in Homo. Sediba is not so unique as to have a lineage of its own. Indeed, Australopithecus africanus is older than sediba and africanus does have unique lineage. Sediba is too primitive to be a direct ancestor of Man. Older Homo species have features more like Man than sediba.
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