Homo Naledi's age revealed

He has be around at about 335 000 and 236 000 

Homo naledi from the Dinaledi chamber has been revealed to be startlingly youngster who shows that he was alive sometimes between 335 000 and 236 000 years.

The research published in three papers in the journal eLife was done by a large team of researchers from the University of Witwatersrand (Wits), James Cool University, Australia, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA and more than 30 international institutions. The dating of Homo naledi is the conclusion of the multi-authored papers entitled The age of Homo naledi and associated sediments in the rising star Cave. Professor Paul Dirks of the James Cook University said the surprisingly young age of Homo naledi opens up more questions on where the origin of man is really from. “Dating of Naledi was extremely challenging," said Dirks, who worked with 19 scientists from different laboratories and institutions around the world. “Eventually, six independent dating methods allowed us to constrain the age of this population of Homo naledi to a period known as the late middle Pleistocene," he added.

 According to the information from the researchers the direct dating of the teeth of Homo Naledi, was done using Uranium series (U) dating and electron spin resonance (ESR) dating. “Of course we were surprised at the young age, but as we realised that all the geological formation in the chamber were young, the        U-series and ESR results were perhaps less of surprise in the end," said professor Eric Roberts from James cook university and Wits who is one of the few geologist to have entered the Dinaledi chamber, due to the tight 18cm wide constraints of the entrance chute.

Some scientists believe the age of Homo naledi will open a wide and broader discussion about the human evolution. "I think some scientists assume they knew how human evolution happened, but these new fossil discoveries, plus what we now know from genetics tells us that the Southern half of Africa was home to a diversity that we have never seen anywhere else," concluded professor John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.