The Smithsonian blog, Hominid Hunting, had a list last week of their “fantasy fossil finds” – the fossils they would most like to see discovered. Of the discoveries listed, I would say #6 (more Homo habilis/Homo rudolfensis finds) and #10 (something unexpected) are the most likely by far, possibly joined by #9 (a chimp relative) depending on how tightly you construe relative.
There are a lot of people working in the early Homo time period and we will almost certainly get more material from this time period sometime in the near future. I would not be surprised, in fact, that new early Homo material has already been found and is just waiting publication. “Something unexpected” sums up many of the more remarkable finds of the past two decades. The diminutive fossils from the Indonesian island of Flores were a surprise, the Malapa material from South Africa have been a surprise, the Denisovan genetic result was a surprise (sort of…), Dmanisi was a surprise…
If I had to put together a top 3 #want list of fossils, it would go something like this.
#1 – An Australopithecus boisei partial skeleton. It would be wonderful to find boisei cranio-dental material associated with post-cranial fossils. One of the challenges in interpreting Plio-Pleistocene post-cranial remains from East Africa is that we have no idea whether they are associated with boisei or Homo. A definitely associated partial skeleton would help a lot. And since this is a fantasy list and I can be greedy, I would like a pelvis to be part of the partial skeleton.
#2 – Middle Pleistocene material from Central and/or Western Asia. The Neandertal and Denisovan genomic data have highlighted the complex biogeography of mid-Pleistocene human populations. It would be great We have nice fossil evidence from this time period around the edges – China, Western Europe, East Africa. It would be wonderful to fill in a few of the temporal/geographic gaps.
#3 – More fossils from the 3.75-4.75 Ma time period. Clarifying the beginning of the Australopithecine lineage would be of great help in understanding the subsequent trajectory of their evolution. The existing A. anamensis material is not extensive enough, and the Ardipithecus ramidus is perhaps too fragmentary and controversial, to provide adequate resolution on this time period now.
Any fossil wish list is necessarily partial. My preference is towards filling existing holes within the hominid/hominin record, but I also recall from a lecture a number of years that the discovery of any “missing link” by definition creates the need for at least two more links.
