​The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) is a joint research facility situated in Grenoble, France. This facility is the first-of-a-kind, generating low-emittance, high-energy X-rays (synchrotron light), enabling researchers to 3D image materials and living matter at exceptionally high resolutions. The ESRF allows researchers from member and associate countries to apply for beam time. These applications go through various review committees and are scored. The highest-scoring applications are accepted and allocated beam time shifts (1 shift = 8 hours). The ESRF funds the entire trip to and from the facility and the scanning itself for three users. With South Africa being an associate member of the ESRF, researchers can apply for scanning time at no cost to the researcher or institutes they work at. This gives South African researchers access to the best synchrotron facility in the world with no financial burden. 

​Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Homo are three hominin genera which existed on the African continent during the Plio-Pleistocene. All three genera are represented in Southern Africa (SA) and Eastern Africa (EA), including (among others) A. afarensis (EA), A. africanus (SA) and A. prometheus (SA); P. aethiopicus (EA), P. robustus (SA) and P. boisei (EA); H. habilis (EA), H. rudolfensis (EA), and H. erectus (EA and SA). Phylogenetic relationships between these species are the subject of much debate among palaeoanthropologists, many of whom accept that there are clear boundaries between species, using alpha taxonomy. However, in the context of palaeoecological changes, such boundaries may not always have existed - hence the need for a probabilistic approach such as (for instance) sigma taxonomy. [1,2]

PalNews is an important part of the PSSA. The very first PalNews issue came out in 1977 and over the last 46 years there have been a total of 81 issues of the biannual newsletter. These cover all aspects of palaeontology in southern Africa. From fieldtrips to lab news, from conference attendances to information on the latest research from the community.

In the October issue of PalNews (Thackeray, 2023) I presented a scenario to try to reach closure on the “Piltdown Case”, involving a hoax (intended as a joke) whereby fragments of a human skull (stained brown) were buried together with a broken jaw of an orangutan (also stained brown) at Piltdown in England in 1912, constituting “Eoanthropus dawsoni (Woodward, 1912)”. Here I present an Addendum regarding the joke that went seriously wrong after it had been accepted by palaeontologists as a genuine “ape-man” with a large brain but an ape-like jaw.