These stories, and the many like it, are old news and I subscribe to the more studied view that there is no “missing link” per se and in my view are distinctions without significant differences. I previously wrote (infra):

[ African fossils may fit gap between apes, humans The Associated Press - Randolph E. Schmid-WASHINGTON - Two skeletons nearly 2 million years old and unearthed in South Africa are part of a previously unknown species that scientists say fits the transition from ancient apes to modern humans. Pictures: New Human Ancestor Fossils Found National Geographic Possible New Human Ancestor Discovered Wired News ]

FOUND: MISSING LINK BETWEEN APES AND MAN.... These stories, and the many like it, are old news and I subscribe to the more studied view that there is no “missing link” per se and in my view are distinctions without significant differences. I previously wrote:

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT FROM WHENCE MAN CAME, THIS LINK'S FOR YOU

  [To the Professor at the beginning of the course]    

10-5-09 Postscript: Professor *****,
I felt compelled to thank you again for the add; not to curry your favor but indeed to express profound thanks inasmuch as this is probably the last formal course at a formal educational institution I'll ever take; and among the most important. While I had bought at discount a library-discarded 1993 Anthropology by Embers text, though meaning to read same never quite got to it. I am astounded by the substantial amount of time involved in the evolutionary process, not that I ever stopped to think about it, and one must come away with the sense of 'and all that...for this?'. This course should be required curriculum along with psychology, sociology, etc., but probably won't be owing to what is, as it should be, a very humbling educational experience for any member of the human race.
             Regards,
                                  Al Peia

Interestingly, my intuitive (but unstudied) thoughts prior to closer examination of the compelling subject of Biological Anthropology remain what I believe to be the correct scenario. Specifically, very simply stated, for the most part, the more “enlightened” (but not by much; by mutation, accident, luck, intervention, etc.) left the unvarying confines of their Sub-Saharan origins, experienced diverse new environs, challenges, etc., experienced what has been described (by neuroscientists, psychologists, etc.) as neurogenesis in varying degrees and forms thereby over time, which trait was selected for and is consistent with the purported multi-regional evolutionary model which does not overtly contradict ultimately, initial African origins. Races, sub-species, missing links, etc., are subsumed in this very humbling and sorrowful tale of the “dawn of man”.