Word: modern
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Several of the bones underscore that A. anamensis did indeed walk upright, some 500,000 years before the next oldest two-legged hominid known. But these creatures didn't walk in the modern sense. As Leakey explains, "They weren't nearly as efficiently upright as we are, and they had relatively short legs. They had a form of locomotion that we don't know today because there isn't anything equivalent...
Precisely where do A. ramidus and A. anamensis fit into the scheme of human evolution? Leakey believes the latter is a direct ancestor of A. afarensis and thus a direct ancestor of modern humans. White and his colleagues have tentatively labeled the older ramidus a "sister species" of all later hominids; it's either our direct ancestor or a close relative of that ancestor. Whichever ramidus turns out to be, it's clear that paleontologists are closing in on the split between apes and humans. "We're in the ballpark. Five or 10 years ago, we couldn't even have...
...MODERN HUMANS...
Just as australopithecus afarensis eventually gave rise to the genus Homo, so one species came to stand out among the Homo line and eventually led to modern humans. The fossil record is far too spotty to say how Homo habilis (handy man) and other members of its genus--H. rudolfensis, H. ergaster and H. erectus--were related, to what extent they overlapped or even whether they all represent distinct species. Many scientists believe, though, that it was H. erectus that was the ultimate victor, the direct ancestor of our own species...
...erectus was also the first hominid to emigrate from Africa, at least 1.8 million years ago, spreading all the way to China and Indonesia. Then, at some point--for reasons still mysterious--the lineage diverged, with one branch leading to Neanderthals and another to modern humans...