Anthropologists name newly found human species lived 5,00,000 yrs ago as Homo bodoensis

In a historic development, anthropologists have named a new ancient human species after reanalysing the skulls earlier discovered in Africa, as per a new study. Named Homo bodoensis, this class of ancient humans lived around 500,000 years ago- during the Middle Pleistocene, and the experts claim that they could be the direct ancestors of modern humans. This study will help historians dive deep into the Pleistocene era, a chapter of human evolution that has mostly been untouched. Conducted by researchers from the University of Winnipeg in Canada, lead author Dr. Mirjana Roksandic told Daily Mail-

"Talking about human evolution during this time period became impossible due to the lack of proper terminology that acknowledges human geographic variation".

Historians move on from Homo heidelbergensis and Homo rhodesiensis

Discovered in Ethiopia's Bodo D'ar, the skulls were previously associated with the species Homo heidelbergensis or Homo rhodesiensis. However, recent analysis has proved that the ancient human fossils belonged to none of the aforementioned species but an entirely new one that is now named Homo bodoensis. The researchers have named the newly found human species after the location where they found the fossils in but as of now, only little is known about them. 

However, the experts did reveal that the male H. bodoensis stood about 5 feet and 9 inches tall and weighed around 63 kilograms while the females had an average height of 5 feet 2 inches and weighed around 50 kilograms. Experts believe that these species went extinct around 2,00,000 years ago, which was far before modern humans left Africa for other parts of the world. A report by New Scientist suggests that even the Neanderthals emerged during this period while the Denisovans and Homo naledi evolved in Asia and Africa respectively. Finally, it was in Africa around 3,00,000 years ago that the Homo Sapiens or the modern-day humans emerged. 

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