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Latest News [ Back To News Index ] For more news articles click the News Index link above. Reports of the Fossils of Oldest Human Ancestor yet discovered Palaeontologists searching in central Ethiopia have unearthed the fossilised bones of a 5.5 million-year-old creature that appears to be our oldest human ancestor The new discovery reported recently from Kenya, has brought science close to the point in the ancient past - somewhere between 5 million and 10 million years ago - when apes and humans diverged from a "common ancestor" to take separate evolutionary paths. The Ethiopian creature, dubbed Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba, "rootman ancestor," walked upright - a classic characteristic separating humans from apes - and had teeth that appeared to be evolving from apes to human ancestors. Scientists have found only 11 bone fragments of the new creature from five sites, making it impossible to determine its size or appearance. But the remains are between 5.2 million and 5.8 million years old, and have been designated an older subspecies of the previous oldest human ancestor ever discovered - the 4.4 million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus ramidus, discovered nearby in 1993. The new creature appears to have been a direct ancestor of later human predecessors, including the famous "Lucy," whose 3.5 million-year-old remains were discovered about 50 miles north of the new find. Distinctly human species arose in Africa about 2 million years ago, while modem humans are only about 100,000 years old. The newly discovered Ardipithecus lived along with ancient elephants, antelope, horses, monkeys and rhinoceros in a lush mountain forest periodically destroyed by volcanic eruptions. It is thought that it was not a carnivore, and though some of the teeth are like those of apes, or a specialised fruit eater, like all chimpanzees, for the teeth suggest that Ardipithecus dined on a menu of soft leaves and fibre-rich fruit. Regardless of the evolutionary debate's outcome, the discovery has further undermined the view that humans developed in a savannah-like habitat where they needed to walk upright to cover large distances and develop the grinding teeth necessary to crush and digest woody reeds and grasses. Instead, the new discovery shows that human progenitors sought a more congenial, greener environment with plenty of water and food sources close at hand, somewhat like the Mountain gorillas of Uganda, and the Orang-utans of Borneo. The new Ardipithecus remains were found at 3,000 feet altitude, but the region was possibly much higher-perhaps 7,000 feet - and much greener 5.5 million years ago, with large lakes, forests and plenty of rain, and full of the resources that forest apes required to survive. In this habitat upright walking was useful, but not to facilitate nomadic wandering, but to access the food. It is probable that these Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba were tree dwellers who needed to come down to the ground so they could walk to the next tree. [ Back To News Index ] |
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