Word: fossilizing
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...while the new discovery brings paleontologists closer to solving the mystery of Homo's origin, it still falls frustratingly short. Although the scientists found a nearly complete upper jaw, 10 teeth and a number of tooth fragments, they can't say for certain which species the fossil belongs to. By 1.9 million years ago, the Homo line had spawned at least two branches: Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis. The new fossil resembles both species in some ways, but without a more nearly complete skull it's impossible to say more. "What we have now is a hypothetical human lineage with...
...arid badlands of northern Ethiopia's Hadar region have long been a fossil-hunter's paradise. It was there, two decades ago, that paleontologists unearthed the celebrated Lucy, a primitive ancestor of modern humans dating back more than 3 million years. On this trip, though, an international team of scientists was on the trail of something less ancient but much more mysterious. Somewhere between 2 million and 3 million years ago, experts believe, Lucy's descendants had evolved into true humans. But despite decades of searching, scientists had yet to find a single well-dated fossil that showed...
Then two veteran fossil hunters from the local Afar tribe, exploring near a dry stream bed, spotted something out of place: two pieces of a prehistoric upper jaw that had eroded from a hillside. "The instant we fit the jaw together," says William Kimbel, science director of the Institute of Human Origins in Berkeley, California, and a leader of the expedition, "we knew we weren't dealing with an apelike Australopithecus [the scientific name for Lucy...
...fact, as the researchers explain in a report that will appear in the December Journal of Human Evolution, the jaw belonged to the genus Homo, the line that includes modern Homo sapiens. The fossil has been dated at 2.33 million years old--arguably the oldest Homo fossil ever found, and right in the middle of the mystery zone. What's more, the bones were found near stone tools of the same age--the oldest combination of bones and artifacts ever discovered...
...about 2.7 million years ago and transformed much of Africa's moist woodlands into dryer, more open savannah. Was the development of tools and a more upright stance an evolutionary strategy to cope with the rigors of the new environment? Perhaps. But until now nobody had found a Homo fossil that dated back anywhere near 2.7 million years...