including the famous ‘Lucy’ (Australopithecus afarensis, about 3.2 million years old) and ‘Hobbit’ (Homo floresiensis, about 90,000 years old), from Ethiopia and Indonesia, respectively.

Central to discussions about hominin diversity in the mid-Pliocene of eastern Africa is whether or not certain fossils should be attributed to Australopithecus afarensis, instead of representing ...