The root of the human genus...or just a dead end?
This is a great article. It could easily be used to get students thinking about how scientists use evidence, craft arguments, and develop theory. It is also a great example of the peer review process.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/334218/title/Fossil_finds_offer_close_look_at_a_contested_ancestor"Newly discovered fossils provide the closest look yet at an anatomically quirky, 2 million-year-old member of the human evolutionary family. Discoverers of the ancient bones suspect they come from a species that served as an evolutionary bridge from relatively apelike ancestors to the Homo genus, which includes modern people."
BUT
"That proposal is controversial. Some researchers doubt that A. sediba set the stage for the Homo genus. Others regard the Malapa fossils either as an early Homo species or as late-surviving members of Australopithecus africanus, a dead-end hominid species that lived from about 3 million to 2.4 million years ago in South Africa"
