BBCnews is carrying this summary of a Nature article detailing a new dating technique for early hominid fossiles. Looks like they're FINALLY able to date the Sterkfontein cave finds, and it turns out they're as old as anything else that's been found. This is a Big Deal.

There are several caves in South Africa that are rich in hominid fossiles. The problem is they're a horrible stratigraphic jumble, making them impossible to date with conventional means. They also didn't have convenient volcanic deposits on or nearby them, preventing older radiocarbon dating techniques from being applied. Hopefully this new technique will pan out. It will answer a lot of mysteries about those cave finds if it does.