ENCORE Meet your new relatives.  The fossilized bones of Homo naledi are unique for their sheer number, but they may also be fill a special slot in our ancestry: the first of our genus Homo.  Sporting modern hands and feet but only a tiny brain, this creature may link us and our ape-like ancestors.    Some anthropologists hail the discovery as that of a new hominid species. Not all their colleagues agree. Find out what’s at stake in the debate.  Also, the scientist who helped retrieve the fossils describes her perilous crawl through a cave with only ten inches of elbow room. And a radical theory about what these old bones might mean: could they be from a burial two million years ago? Guests: Marina Elliott  – Paleoanthropologist, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa Carl Ward – Biological anthropologist, University of Missouri John Hawks- Anthropologist, University of Wisconsin, Madison Tim White - Anthropologist, University of California, Berkeley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ENCORE Meet your new relatives.  The fossilized bones of Homo naledi are unique for their sheer number, but they may also be fill a special slot in our ancestry: the first of our genus Homo.  Sporting modern hands and feet but only a tiny brain, this creature may link us and our ape-like ancestors.    Some anthropologists hail the discovery as that of a new hominid species. Not all their colleagues agree. Find out what’s at stake in the debate.  Also, the scientist who helped retrieve the fossils describes her perilous crawl through a cave with only ten inches of elbow room. And a radical theory about what these old bones might mean: could they be from a burial two million years ago? Guests: Marina Elliott  – Paleoanthropologist, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa Carl Ward – Biological anthropologist, University of Missouri John Hawks- Anthropologist, University of Wisconsin, Madison Tim White - Anthropologist, University of California, Berkeley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices