Posted on 04/13/2006 12:18:35 PM PDT by Senator Bedfellow
When the famous skeleton of an early human ancestor known as Lucy was discovered in Africa in the 1970s, scientists asked: Where did she come from?
Now, fossils found in the same region are providing solid answers, researchers have announced.
Lucy is a 3.5-foot-tall (1.1-meter-tall) adult skeleton that belongs to an early human ancestor, or hominid, known as Australopithecus afarensis.
The species lived between 3 million and 3.6 million years ago and is widely considered an ancestor of modern humans.
The new fossils are from the most primitive species of Australopithecus, known as Australopithecus anamensis. The remains date to about 4.1 million years ago, according to Tim White, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
White co-directed the team that discovered the new fossils in Ethiopia (map) in a region of the Afar desert known as the Middle Awash.
The team says the newly discovered fossils are a no-longer-missing link between early and later forms of Australopithecus and to a more primitive hominid known as Ardipithecus.
"What the new discovery does is very nicely fill this gap between the earliest of the Lucy species at 3.6 million years and the older [human ancestor] Ardipithecus ramidus, which is dated at 4.4 million years," White said.
The new fossil find consists mainly of jawbone fragments, upper and lower teeth, and a thigh bone.
The fossils are described in today's issue of the journal Nature.
Found Links
According to White, the discovery supports the hypothesis that Lucy was a direct descendent of Australopithecus anamensis.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Ping.
My source says no.
http://albia.com/8ball/8b.spml
It's a difficult field.
Obviously further research is warranted :)
Helen Thomas has been located ?
I don't think so. It's a hominid, not a baboon/gorilla
And still the creationist troglodytes insist that not one single "transitional" fossil has been located. Earth to creationists: you're crazy.
Naw, it just takes a little faith!
Well... actually a lot of faith...
Ah ha. Too slow, I guess. Well, mine's still bigger ;)
Putting a couple of teeth and a leg bone together and coming up with what MUST be a missing link is pitiful, but you tell yourself whatever you need to, in order to deny your Creator and live as you wish.
This "transitional link" goes backwards to fill a gap between Lucy and an earlier species. It gets further from us, not closer. When they find a transitional link that results in Humans, you can act as if you are really superior enough to belittle others...
You clearly have no idea just how much information can be contained in just a few bones. You sit in front of your computer, pontificating on the foolishness of anthropologists, with neither expertise nor anything more than a few flippant quips to add to the discussion.
but you tell yourself whatever you need to, in order to deny your Creator and live as you wish.
And you keep telling yourself that the only people who accept modern science are those who wish deny our Creator. You're living in denial --- I'm certainly not an atheist, and I'm tired of your stupid strawmen.
I don't know about this one way or the other, but it seems this can't be "news" because they claim to discover the missing link every few years.
Ping me when they find the missing link for intelligence!
That's all? They think they can reconstruct the entire animal for that, and declare that this is the missing link?
Unbelievable.
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