FWIW - re your recent edit rv - Seems there's a substantial amount of material in the complete film documentary, "Dawn of Humanity (2015 PBS film)", that *directly* relates "2001: A Space Odyssey" to the recent discoveries of "Homo naledi" fossils in South Africa - the film documentary can be viewed, as a trailer (00:30), at => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPpMIhmNRsA - or - as the complete film (113:07), at => http://video.pbs.org/video/2365559270/

Copied from "Main Article - Version 13:49, 13 September 2015":

Influence on science

The behavior of apes in the "Dawn of Man" sequence of 2001, largely influenced by the notions of Raymond Dart and dramatist Robert Ardrey, have been "proven false", since such violent apes have now been shown to be "vegetarians" instead, according to archeology expert K. Kris Hirst, reviewing the Dawn of Humanity (2015 PBS film) documentary which describes, directly in the context of 2001, the 2015 studies of fossils of Homo naledi.

Comments by other editors are welcome of course - in any case - hope this helps in some way - Enjoy! )