This Thursday, an international team of researchers announced the designation of a new ancestral human species, “Homo bodoensis,” believing that the classification is critical to studying human evolution for about half a million years.
“It was impossible to talk about human evolution during this period due to the lack of adequate terminology that would recognize the geographical differences in humans,” explained paleoanthropologist Mirjana Roksandich of the University of Winnipeg, Canada, who led the research team.
According to a study announced in a Canadian university statement, “Homo bodoensis” lived in Africa during the Middle Pleistocene, about half a million years ago, and may be considered a direct ancestor of modern humans.
The Middle Pleistocene is considered to be the basis for the emergence of “Homo sapiens” (modern human species) in Africa and “Homo neanderthalensis” in Europe.
However, the chapter on human evolution during this time is still poorly understood, a problem that paleoanthropologists call an “intermediate fallacy,” whereas the declaration “Homo bodoensis” may now help clarify this.
The new name is based on a reassessment of fossils from that period found in Africa and Eurasia.
The name “bodoensis” comes from a skull found in Bodo D’ar, Ethiopia, and is expected to apply to people from Middle Pleistocene Africa and some southeastern regions of Europe, while many from continental Europe will be reclassified as Neanderthals …
“Naming a new species is a big step forward as the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature only allows name changes in accordance with very strictly defined rules,” said Mirjana Roksandic.
According to Christopher Bae, a researcher at the University of Hawaii and one of the authors of the study, the introduction of this new designation “will cut this Gordian knot, making it possible to clearly communicate this important period in human evolution.”
