![]() afarensis, like the orbital region in the frontal area. “There are a few features exclusively shared with A. anamensis ’ own traits are quite primitive,” Haile-Selassie says, noting the individual’s small brain, protruding face and large canine teeth. The opportunity to study a nearly complete braincase and face confirms the “southern ape” as a unique species and shines light on the differences between two of our most ancient hominin ancestors, A. anamensis are limited to small bits of bone, such as a tooth, partial jaw, or fragment of arm or shin. anamensis has traits of both apes (climbing arms and wrists) and humans (changes in the ankles and knee joints to facilitate walking on two feet). The hominin species is theorized to have vanished a bit earlier than 3.8 million years ago after giving rise to a later lineage, Australopithecus afarensis, to which the famed fossil Lucy belongs. The results identify the skull as belonging to a male Australopithecus anamensis. They sized up different morphological features to see what species the cranium represents and where it fits in the interconnected lineages of our family tree. Haile-Selassie and colleagues compared the skull (dubbed MRD after part of its collection ID number) with a wide variety of hominin fossils from across Africa. Photography by Dale Omori and Liz Russell / Cleveland Museum of Natural History But it has taken 3 and a half years of hard work to answer the first question that arose-just what kind of skull is it?Ĭomposite image of human hands holding “MRD” by Jennifer Taylor. The amazingly complete skull surfaced at Woranso-Mille, in Ethiopia’s Afar region, back in 2016. “This cranium looks set to become another celebrated icon of human evolution,” Fred Spoor, a human evolution researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, writes in a News & Views article that accompanied Haile-Selassie and colleagues’ new study in the journal Nature. Experts say the extraordinary fossil can help redefine the branches of humans’ evolutionary tree during a time when our ancestors had just evolved efficient ways to walk upright. The chance discovery by Haile-Selassie and an Ethiopian shepherd has created a captivating portrait of 3.8-million-year-old face, providing an unprecedented look at a hominin species from a key stage of human evolution. ![]() ![]() “It was something that I’ve never seen before, and I’ve seen a lot of cranial fossils,” he says. Spotting the intact Australopithecus skull in the Ethiopian dirt caused paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie to literally jump for joy.
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