Remember when Homo naledi was revealed last year? You know the skull that signalled the massive break through in the historical timeline of human evolution and even made it onto the cover of National Geographic?

The dude who worked with the skull, Wits University paleoanthropologist Professor Lee Berger, has made it onto TIME Magazine‘s 2016 list of 100 most influential people IN THE WORLD.

The list is now in its 13th year:

The TIME 100 is a list of the world’s most influential men and women‚ not its most powerful‚ though those are not mutually exclusive terms. While power is certain‚ influence is subtle. As much as this exercise chronicles the achievements of the past year‚ we also focus on figures whose influence is likely to grow‚ so we can look around the corner to see what is coming.

So why Lee Berger? He is “an award-winning paleoanthropologist‚ researcher‚ explorer‚ author and speaker from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg”.

His explorations into human origins in Africa over the past two-and-a-half decades have resulted in many new and notable discoveries‚ including the most complete early hominin fossils found so far‚ which belong to a new species of early human ancestor‚ Australopithecus sediba and‚ in 2013‚ the richest early hominin site yet found on in Africa and a new species of human relative‚ Homo Naledi‚ announced in 2015.

“It is an honour to be included in the TIME 100 and a tribute to the world-class and influential science being produced on the African continent by African scientists and African institutions such as Wits University. This recognition also reflects on the hard work of my colleagues‚ who are all critical to both the discoveries being made‚ as well as the interpretations put forward in the scientific literature‚” Berger said.

Represent!

[source: bdlive]