Word: paleontologist
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...Paleontologist Gen Suwa was walking across the pebble-covered desert of north- central Ethiopia under the searing midday sun, peering carefully around him for ancient bones. Then he saw it: the telltale gleam of a fossil tooth partially exposed on the rocky ground. "I knew immediately that it was a hominid tooth," says the University of Tokyo scientist, "and one of the oldest ever found...
...diminutive, humanlike creature walked the earth some 4.4 million years ago -- half a million years earlier than the oldest human ancestors ever identified. That stretches our family tree back almost to the era when humans and apes branched off from a single ancestor. In fact, says University of Liverpool paleontologist Bernard Wood, whose commentary on the find also appears in Nature: "It looks to me like this is either the common ancestor or damned close to it. I think we're splitting hairs not to call it the 'missing link...
...potentially unlikable and thorny man human and sympathetic. Sam Neill, who originally wanted to play the part of Baines, is particularly fine in the role of Stewart, a good man who loses his head because of jealousy and passion. Here Neill has a role meatier than that of the paleontologist he played in "Jurassic Park." He lives up to the possibilities of the role...
Then, in the early 1900s, large numbers of Neanderthal skeletons were discovered, mainly in the Dordogne region of southern France. With these specimens in hand, scientists felt that they could better describe the physical appearance of a Neanderthal man, and the task of reconstructing one fell to noted French paleontologist Marcellin Boule...
...research into Neanderthals, the relationship between them and modern humans is still a topic for hot debate. Some textbooks classify Neanderthals as a subspecies within Homo sapiens; others list a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis. British paleontologist Christopher Stringer is convinced that Neanderthals evolved in Europe from Homo erectus and suddenly became extinct between 35,000 and 30,000 years ago, unable to compete effectively with Homo sapiens originating in Africa. "In my view," he says, "they are a dead end -- highly evolved in their own direction but not in the direction of modern humans...