Skull discovery could fill origins gap

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - A hominid skull discovered in Ethiopia could fill the gap in the search for the origins of the human race, a scientist said on Friday.

The cranium, found near the city of Gawis, 500 km (300 miles) southeast of the capital Addis Ababa, is estimated to be 200,000 to 500,000 years old.

The skull appeared "to be intermediate between the earlier Homo erectus and the later Homo sapiens," Sileshi Semaw, an Ethiopian research scientist at the Stone Age Institute at Indiana University, told a news conference in Addis Ababa.

It was discovered two months ago in a small gully at the Gawis river drainage basin in Ethiopia's Afar region, southeast of the capital.

Sileshi said significant archaeological collections of stone tools and numerous fossil animals were also found at Gawis.

"(It) opens a window into an intriguing and important period in the development of modern humans," Sileshi said.

Over the last 50 years, Ethiopia has been a hot bed for archaeological discoveries.

Hadar, located near Gawis, is where in 1974 U.S. scientist Donald Johnson found the 3.2 million year old remains of "Lucy," described by scientists as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in the world.

Lucy is Ethiopia's world-acclaimed archaeological find. The discovery of the almost complete hominid skeleton was a landmark in the search for the origins of humanity.

On the shores of what was formerly a lake in 1967, two Homo sapien skulls dating back 195,000 years were unearthed. The discovery pushed back the known date of mankind, suggesting that modern man and his older precursor existed side by side.

Sileshi said while different from a modern human, the braincase, upper face and jaw of the cranium have unmistakeable anatomical evidence that belong to human ancestry.

"The Gawis cranium provides us with the opportunity to look at the face of one of our ancestors," he added.

Would these scientists describe three DIFFERENT species? Of course they would! And it would ALSO be ridiculous.

In addition to what Coyoteman said, we also know from direct observation that Andre the Giant, Shaq, and Warwick Davis are all outliers within the contemporary human population. So for archaeologists to find only those three people and none of the vast majority of humans that are much more representative samples of H. sapiens would be very, very unlikely.

Which means your scenario is a fine example of creationist argument. >:-)

Which of the following are "just an old ape" and which are "just an old human"? Try it, it's fun!

Fossil hominid skulls. Some of the figures have been modified for ease of comparison
(only left-right mirroring or removal of a jawbone). (Images © 2000 Smithsonian Institution.)

(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
(C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
(H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
(I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man", 300,000 - 125,000 y
(J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
(K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
(L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
(M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
(N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

We know that A) is a modern chimpanzee and N) is a modern human. Your challenge is to fill in these blanks:

Fossil	Just an ape	Ape-like transitional	Human-like transitional	Just a human	Not related at all to apes or humans
B	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
C	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
D	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
E	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
F	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
G	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
H	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
I	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
J	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
K	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
L	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
M	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]

The Responses So Far:

Person	B Australopithecus africanus	C Australopithecus africanus	D Homo habilis	E Homo habilis	F Homo rudolfensis	G Homo erectus	H Homo ergaster	I Homo heidelbergensis	J Homo sapiens neanderthalensis	K Homo sapiens neanderthalensis	L Homo sapiens sapiens (Cro-Magnon)
Mainstream scientists	ape-like	ape-like	ape-like, human-like	ape-like, human-like	human-like	human-like	human-like	human-like	human-like	human-like	human
editor-surveyor	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	human	human	human
Michael_Michaelangelo	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	human	human	human
MississippiMan							ape

Oh, give me a break. I do statistical forecasting in my line of business, so I am very familiar with the math as I do the calcs on a daily basis. Just to let you know, you need a decent POPULATION to study before you can CALL something an outlier. The point I was making was that when the number of skeletons are few, calculations can NOT be exact enough to say whether you are dealing with a representative population, or you are dealing strictly with outliers.

OBVIOUSLY, the three I mentioned were outliers, which is my point! Scientists, in their zeal to find a missing link, would much rather declare new species for the three examples than to say there was a possibility they were all the same species. Get it?

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