'New species' of ancient human found

The British Broadcasting Corporation ^ | May 28, 2015 | Rebecca Morelle

[2ndDivisionVet]

A new species of ancient human has been unearthed in the Afar region of Ethiopia, scientists report.

Researchers discovered jaw bones and teeth, which date to between 3.3m and 3.5m years old.

It means this new hominin was alive at the same time as several other early human species, suggesting our family tree is more complicated than was thought.

The study is published in the journal Nature.

The new species has been called Australopithecus deyiremeda, which means "close relative" in the language spoken by the Afar people.

The ancient remains are thought to belong to four individuals, who would have had both ape and human-like features..

Living with Lucy

Lead researcher Dr Yohannes Haile-Selassie, curator of physical anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in the US, told BBC News: "We had to look at the detailed anatomy and morphology of the teeth and the upper and lower jaws, and we found major differences.

"This new species has very robust jaws. In addition, we see this new species had smaller teeth. The canine is really small - smaller than all known hominins we have documented in the past."(continued)

[AndyTheBear]

For fossils/remains older than 50,000 years there are other means of measuring than C14.

Indeed, which is why I said "radiometric" dating. C14 "radiocarbon" dating is a type of radiometric dating, but of course not the kind used on igneous rocks, but only used on things that were once alive. And you are correct its not good past 50K years or so because of its relatively short half life.

[zeestephen]

I was being sarcastic when I replied to you, red.

I am a life long student of history, and, yes, I knew who Haile-Selassie was before I wrote my comments.

Obviously, there are some world class archaeologists and paleontologists from lesser developed countries.

However, the gold standard for research and preservation has been set by northern Europeans, Americans, and Israelis.

Since the political Left in the developed world insists that any inequality in any field is a result of racism, academia now makes continual compromises on scientific standards for many indigenous peoples and people of color.

Since Dr. Haile-Selassie appears to be a respected expert, that's very comforting news.