JOHANNESBURG -  Berger was referring  to a large rock containing more pieces of a skeleton believed to be the remains of “Karabo”, an australopithecus sediba species discovered at the Malapa site  in 2009.

The finds  further piece together the human ancestry puzzle.

“These discoveries again help us to understand where we come from and the process of how we became what we are.

“It will also help us  understand why we are the way we are,”  Berger said at the Wits Institute for Human Evolution yesterday.

Karabo was a young boy that lived  about two million years ago.

 He forms part of the “braided stream” of human evolution, which has modern humans at its end.

  “What we have here is a time machine.”

The rock lay at the university’s laboratory for three years until Berger decided to send it for a CT scan.

 Inside they found more parts of a jaw, a complete thigh bone, ribs, vertebrae and other important pieces.

“Our work is not just for us, we are doing this for the whole of humanity.”

Speaking about disagreements between some religions and science over the origins of humankind, Berger said science and religion have to operate together without conflict.
 
“A religious scholar would study questions about good and evil, and those are not questions which science answers.”

He said there was a shift in thinking  as religion and science matured.
“Science is real, evolution is real,” he said.

 Besides drilling, Berger planned to extract the fossil by using electronic and digital technology.  

Once extracted Karabo will be one of the most complete hominid skeletons in the world.
 Berger believes Karabo was part of a group of people that lived in the area and that plenty more fossils are waiting to be found.

“This is not going to be the last,” he said.

Excavations at the Malapa site will start  toward the end of this year with the application of new technology, including lasers.

Berger’s team comprises a group of about 85 scientists, and it keeps growing.

People around the world will be able to follow the excavations live on the Internet via a state of the art laboratory that will be built at the site.

It would even allow for the viewing public to interact with scientists as they conduct their duties, said Berger.