New species of extinct human found in cave may rewrite history

[progressoid]

16. I love how he recruited scientists to excavate it.

And he advertised for research assistants on Facebook — for skinny scientists who weren't claustrophobic. Six women took the job.

They worked in the chamber almost like spacewalkers, communicating with researchers outside, via cameras and about 2 miles of fiber optic cable. The team in the chamber used paintbrushes and toothpicks to gently unearth fossil bones — there were more than 1,550 of them, an incredible treasure trove. The researchers describe their find Thursday in a journal called eLife.

"Often I was wondering, 'How on Earth are we going to get that fossil out?' because the density of bones in that chamber was so great, it was like a puzzle to get each fossil out," says Becca Peixotto, one of the scientist-cavers and a doctoral student in anthropology at American University.



http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/10/437249183/south-african-cave-yields-strange-bones-of-early-human-like-species

Also, National Geographic has some great videos etc on their website about the expedition.

http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/blog/rising-star-expedition/?order=asc