Posted on 04/04/2010 1:26:05 PM PDT by jerry557
The new species of hominid, the evolutionary branch of primates that includes humans, is to be revealed when the two-million-year-old skeleton of a child is unveiled this week.
Scientists believe the almost-complete fossilised skeleton belonged to a previously-unknown type of early human ancestor that may have been a intermediate stage as ape-men evolved into the first species of advanced humans, Homo habilis.
Experts who have seen the skeleton say it shares characteristics with Homo habilis, whose emergence 2.5 million years ago is seen as a key stage in the evolution of our species.
The new discovery could help to rewrite the history of human evolution by filling in crucial gaps in the scientific knowledge.
Most fossilised hominid remains are little more than scattered fragments of bone, so the discovery of an almost-complete skeleton will allow scientists to answer key questions about what our early ancestors looked like and when they began walking upright on two legs.
--snip--
The fossil record of early humans is notoriously patchy and scientists now hope that the that the new remains will provide fresh clues about how our species evolved.
Scientists believe that a group of apelike hominids known as Australopithicus, which first emerged in Africa around 3.9 million years ago, gradually evolved into the first Homo species.
Over time the Australopithicus species lost their more apelike features as they started to stand upright and their brain capacity increased.
Around 2.5 million years ago Homo habilis, the first species to be described as distinctly human, began to appear, although only a handful of specimens have ever been found.
It is thought that the new fossil to be unveiled this week will be identified as a new species that fits somewhere between Australopithicus and Homo habilis.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Another missing link? Seems like they find a new one every few years and then it is quietly discredited a few years later.
very good!
The missing link has been right in front of us all this time. I should have figured it out by now. We really need to test his DNA.
|
|
|||
Gods |
Thanks jerry557. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
in local libraries
Oh, PLEASE!
It’s OBAMA!
Obama is the “missing link”.
We still have apes because evolution is caused by spontaneous favorable mutations. Mutations occur in individuals. If the individual competes successfully the mutation is passed on to the offspring. Meanwhile all the others that did NOT get the mutation continue on in their own separate path. For example the white skin mutation that occurred about 30 or 40,000 years ago in dark africans moving north enabled the “white” person’s offspring to live successfully in more northern areas eventually superceding the Neanderthals. Why? Because white skin absorbs vitamin D better, making better pelvic bone structure, and facilitating childbirth.
I am not slack jawed and speechless!!
My own view of the story is when we are this far back in time we have so few specimens that our picture of the evolutionary sequence is not much more than sophisticated guesswork. Still, pictures of a skeleton this complete should be really cool.
In other words, they found yet another ape skeleton.
I wholeheartedly agree!
Definitions of terms required here.
The scientific Family of "great apes" (hominids) first branched off from the Order of monkeys about 15 million years ago.
About 2.5 million years ago the Genus "homo" (pre-humans) split from the other great apes.
The first and only sub-species of fully modern humans (homo sapiens sapiens) branched off somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.
Bottom line: humans did branch off from the Genus of pre-humans (homo), the Family of great apes (hominids), and the Order of monkeys (primates), but not from any species alive today.
“Still more intelligent than your average democrat.”
And currently registered to vote in Chicago.
Since the article is, “Missing link between man and apes found,” you repudiate it?
I was responding to the comment, not the article. Nothing to repudiate.
Again?
Bottom line: humans did branch off from the Genus of pre-humans (homo), the Family of great apes (hominids)
Most of the stuff I read defining hominidae put it outside the primate realm of "great apes" although recent DNA evidence is leading to a re-thinking, re-wording and re-defining of all this. So it depends upon who you ask, who you quote. Kind of like Global Warming. (Insert wry grin here.)
All this is an irrelevant. (Insert loud trumpeting sound here.)
The point was we didn't evolve from "apes" (Oooo-hooo, Aaaah-heeeaaaah!) but from what was termed in the past, "a common ancestor", which was the answer the supposed lunkheads the other poster was referring to, and claimed to dupe, should have known. That was my point. Not that any of that matters.
The fact that apes still exist, whether or not homo sapiens evolved from them, has no bearing on the issue at all, any more than the fact that pre-mammalian species like horseshoe crabs, sharks and crocodiles still exist even though other descendents from a common ancestor do as well, namely mammals. They found their niche and other species went on to evolve in theirs, one doesn't necessarily supplant and/or replace the other simply by evolving into a new niche. Which was the erroneous point the poster I was responding to was attempting to make, and failing.
But all this is arbitrary.
I don't reify.
A "species" is a term given by man for a creature (or grouping of creatures) passing through a given stage of evolution. It is not a fixed "thing". There are no "apes" per se (or hominidae for that matter - which is why the definition can change with time, as I noted earlier) other than our conceptual classification as such, so to say we evolved from "apes" is to commit the fallacy of reification, twice over.
Apes exist as a concept; Life IS. (Existence exists.) As I noted here (Freeperland) once, what is already a long time ago, everything is a transitional species. Concepts are for convenience, (in the human sense, the convenience of survival) nothing more. They do not impose reality upon the world, they reflect it.
The map is not the territory.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
