After a decade of careful excavation, it is now possible to explain how the skeleton came to be in that isolated position in the cavern. Furthermore, it is apparent that the fossil does not belong to either Australopithecus africanus or to A. afarensis, but to an individual belonging to, or closely affiliated to, the second Australopithecus species that is represented in Sterkfontein Member 4 and Makapansgat.
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Ronald J. Clarke (2008) studied this question.
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