A 2.8 million year-old jawbone was discovered recently in Eastern Africa. The jawbone belongs to a creature that shared both human and ape-like features. This scientific finding is a big deal because it is, so far, the earliest evidence of our lineage.
Modern humans' immediate ancestors was widely believed to be Australopithecus. They looked like apes, but also had some human features. You might remember 'Lucy,' the famous partial skeleton found in Ethiopia in the 70s, she is one of them. They had long arms, short legs, and a brain size not larger than a chimp's.
The creatures predominantly inhabited East Africa for about a million years and then about three million years ago they became extinct, at least that’s what fossilized evidences suggested.
The new fossil fills that gap between Australopithecus and humans, according to researchers. The jawbone has smaller teeth and more rounded jaw more similar to modern humans. The team says it appears to belong to a creature from the beginning of the ancestral line that led to humans.
“We have this huge gap in the fossil record until about two million years,” UNLV anthropologist Brian Villmoare told KNPR's State of Nevada. "And then at two, we see a creature that is recognizably like us: it has a larger brain, it depends on stone tools, it’s eating meat and it has more modern limb proportions.”
Brian Villmoare led an international team of researchers that discovered the jawbone in Afar region of Ethiopia. The jawbone answered old questions and raised some new ones.
Copyright 2015 KNPR-FM. To see more, visit http://www.knpr.org/. 9(MDA0NjY4NzQ2MDEyOTc4NzIzMThmMjJkMg001))
Brian Villmoare, anthropologist, UNLV