Very little is known about this era, which is known as “the confusion”, because experts still do not agree on the species that existed in it. It is a time between the rise of Homo erectus and that of modern man, Homo sapiens.
A group of researchers named a new species that could clear up this confusion and that, according to their analysis, would be the direct ancestor of humans.
It is Homo bodoensis, which lived in Africa about 500,000 years ago and which, according to the authors of the study, helps to solve the puzzle of a key period in human evolution.
new labels
The period of confusion corresponds to the Middle Pleistocene, which since 2020 has been known as Chibanian, and which occurred between 774,000 and 129,000 years ago.
Experts, however, are unsure of which species the various fossils from that period belong to. And in connection with that, it’s not very clear which species gave rise to which.
The Chibanon period is important because it was during this period that Homo sapiens emerged in Africa and Neanderthals in Europe.
The problem is that fossils from the time that preceded Homo sapiens and Neanderthals “are poorly defined and are understood in various ways”, according to the authors of the research.
Fossils from the Chibanian period have traditionally been called Homo heidelbergensis or Homo rhodesiensis, two categories that some experts say have often been described in contradictory ways.
“Talking about human evolution during this period has become impossible due to the lack of adequate terminology that recognizes human geographic variation,” says Mirjana Roksandic, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Winnipeg in Canada and lead author of a new study.
With this argument, Roksandic and his team reanalyzed a set of Chibanian fossils found in Africa and Eurasia, and concluded that the categories Homo heidelbergensis or Homo rhodesiensis should be discontinued and grouped under a new exclusive label: Homo bodoensis.
Researchers also mention that some fossils that have been identified as Homo heidelbergensis are actually Neanderthals.
Regarding the Homo rhodesiensis category, they add that it has been an unaccepted label, in part because its name is associated with Cecil Rhodes, a symbol of British imperialism in Africa.
Clarity
Homo bodoensis takes its name from a skull found in Bodo D’ar, Ethiopia.
Roksandic and his colleagues argue that Homo bodoensis is the direct ancestor of humans and includes most early Chibanian humans in Africa and some from southeastern Europe.
The study authors hope that the use of the Homo bodoensis category will help facilitate communication and clarity about the Chibanian period.
According to Roksandic told BBC News Mundo (the BBC’s Spanish news service), the taxonomy of Homo bodoensis has already been accepted by the International Zoological Nomenclature Commission, the body responsible for ensuring the correct use of the animals’ scientific names.
Caution
Two experts consulted by BBC News Mundo who were not involved in the survey expressed reservations about the findings.
“I think the authors raise an important long-standing paleoanthropological problem that haunts us all, but they don’t offer a convincing solution,” said paleoanthropologist Zeray Alemseged, professor of biology and anatomy of organisms at the University of Chicago.
Alemseged refers to the fact that, in order to resolve the confusion surrounding Homo heidelbergensis, it is not enough to name a new species after a skull.
“It’s not going to help us, what we want, I think, is to find more fossils from Europe and Africa so we can have a better understanding,” says Alemseged.
Jeff McKee, professor in the Department of Anthropology at Ohio State University, is also skeptical.
“The species Homo heidelbergensis has been a designation that went unresolved for some time, as no one could agree on which fossils belonged to this taxon,” says McKee.
“I suspect that, in the same way, the new proposal of Homo bodoensis will be like a fossil taxonomic deposit that will not sustain itself in the long term.”
McKee argues that he is not in favor of trying to “artificially impose” a taxonomy on emerging human subpopulations.
Positions like those of Alemseged and McKee pose a challenge to Roksandic’s proposal, who argues that the concept of Homo bodoensis “will last a long time”.
“A new taxon name will only exist if other researchers use it”, says the researcher
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