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Fossil find breakthrough hailed

• The skull of the long-faced human whose fossils were found near Lake Turkana in Kenya …

At least three species from the human family Homo may have lived together in Africa almost two million years ago, new research has suggested.

One of them, Homo erectus, is thought to be the most likely direct ancestor of people living today.
The others most probably came to an evolutionary dead end, experts believe.
Between 2007 and 2009, three new fossils were unearthed from a site near Lake Turkana in Kenya - known as the "cradle of mankind". They included a face, a near-complete lower jaw, and part of a second lower jaw.
Combined with a mysterious fossil known as "1470" found nearby four decades ago, they confirm the existence of a human species with a large brain case and long, flat face.
The fossils appear to be distinct both from Homo erectus and Homo habilis, another primitive species from the same era.
Before the new discoveries, experts had tentatively named the 1470 species Homo rudolfensis.
Dr Meave Leakey, co-leader of the Koobi Fora Research Project (KFRP) in Kenya, one of the scientists whose findings are published in the journal Nature, said: "For the past 40 years we have looked long and hard in the vast expanse of sediments around Lake Turkana for fossils that confirm the unique features of 1470's face and show us what its teeth and lower jaw would have looked like.

 
"At last we have some answers."
Co-author Professor Fred Spoor, from University College London, said: "Combined, the three new fossils give a much clearer picture of what 1470 looked like. As a result, it is now clear that two species of early Homo lived alongside Homo erectus. The new fossils will greatly help in unravelling how our branch of human evolution first emerged and flourished almost two million years ago."

"Amazing find" hailed as scientists unearth 1,400-year-old skeleton of one of Britain's first Christians

"Amazing find" hailed as scientists unearth 1,400-year-old skeleton of one of Britain's first Christians
Scientists have discovered the remains of what is thought to be one of Britain's first ever Christians after unearthing an "excessively rare" 1,400 year old Anglo-Saxon burial site in Cambridgeshire.

Discovery: The skeleton

The amazing grave in Trumpington Meadows contains the skeletal remains of a 16-year-old female Catholic convert lying on an ornamental bed clutching a gold and garnet cross.

It is believed the girl, from the 7th century AD, was a member of nobility, persuaded to join the Christian faith after the Pope dispatched St Augustine to England in 597AD.

St Augustine was a benedictine monk, known as the ‘Apostle to the English’, whose job was to convert Anglo-Saxon pagan kings and their families.

Amazing find: The cross

Dr Sam Lewsey, an expert on the period, said: "This is an excessively rare discovery. It is the most amazing find I have ever encountered.

"Christian conversion began at the top and percolated down. To be buried in this elaborate way, with such a valuable artefact, tells us that this girl was probably nobility or even royalty.

"This cross is the kind of material culture that was in circulation at the highest sphere of society."