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Fossil Find Is Missing Link in Human Evolution, Scientists Say
National Geographic News ^ | April 13, 2006 | John Roach

Posted on 04/13/2006 12:18:35 PM PDT by Senator Bedfellow

When the famous skeleton of an early human ancestor known as Lucy was discovered in Africa in the 1970s, scientists asked: Where did she come from?

Now, fossils found in the same region are providing solid answers, researchers have announced.

Lucy is a 3.5-foot-tall (1.1-meter-tall) adult skeleton that belongs to an early human ancestor, or hominid, known as Australopithecus afarensis.

The species lived between 3 million and 3.6 million years ago and is widely considered an ancestor of modern humans.

The new fossils are from the most primitive species of Australopithecus, known as Australopithecus anamensis. The remains date to about 4.1 million years ago, according to Tim White, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

White co-directed the team that discovered the new fossils in Ethiopia (map) in a region of the Afar desert known as the Middle Awash.

The team says the newly discovered fossils are a no-longer-missing link between early and later forms of Australopithecus and to a more primitive hominid known as Ardipithecus.

"What the new discovery does is very nicely fill this gap between the earliest of the Lucy species at 3.6 million years and the older [human ancestor] Ardipithecus ramidus, which is dated at 4.4 million years," White said.

The new fossil find consists mainly of jawbone fragments, upper and lower teeth, and a thigh bone.

The fossils are described in today's issue of the journal Nature.

Found Links

According to White, the discovery supports the hypothesis that Lucy was a direct descendent of Australopithecus anamensis.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ardipithecusramidus; crevo; crevolist
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To: Senator Bedfellow

21 posted on 04/13/2006 12:57:05 PM PDT by theFIRMbss
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To: trebb
This "transitional link" goes backwards to fill a gap between Lucy and an earlier species.

Right. It fleshes out the connection between "Lucy" and earlier transitional species, to Australopithecus anamensis and to Ardipithecus ramidus.

When they find a transitional link that results in Humans, you can act as if you are really superior enough to belittle others...

I'm not sure what you're asking for. There are lots of links connecting us with Lucy (A. afarensis). Post "Lucy" are A. africanus, A. gahri,P. aethiopicus, P. robustus,P. bosei, H. habilis, H. rudolfensis, H. ergaster, H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, "Archaic" H. sapiens, and Neanderthals. I guess those all qualify as transitional links resulting in humans, although I concede that there's conflicting evidence of descendence for the Neanderthals and the Paranthropites.

Now please explain what your point is again. To be honest, I suspect rather strongly that you have no idea what you're talking about.

22 posted on 04/13/2006 12:57:30 PM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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To: Senator Bedfellow

Damn those facts!!!!


23 posted on 04/13/2006 12:58:21 PM PDT by jec41 (Screaming Eagle)
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To: Jotmo
That's all? They think they can reconstruct the entire animal for that, and declare that this is the missing link?

No, they cannot reconstruct the entire animal from that, but there's an enormous amount you can tell about an animal from, for example, its cranium (like whether it walked on two or four feet, a rather important distinction).

24 posted on 04/13/2006 12:58:28 PM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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To: Jotmo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Man

It's nothing new, the Nebraska Man was once used as evidence for a transitional link.


25 posted on 04/13/2006 12:59:38 PM PDT by conservativefreak
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To: trebb
This "transitional link" goes backwards to fill a gap between Lucy and an earlier species. It gets further from us, not closer. When they find a transitional link that results in Humans, you can act as if you are really superior enough to belittle others...

This chart may help explain the position of this find.

Its not so much a missing link as another piece of evidence. There are a lot of pieces of evidence, and the few gaps between the different known specimens are getting smaller.

Source: http://wwwrses.anu.edu.au/environment/eePages/eeDating/HumanEvol_info.html

26 posted on 04/13/2006 1:00:19 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Interim tagline: The UN 1967 Outer Space Treaty is bad for America and bad for humanity - DUMP IT!)
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To: Abcdefg
I don't know about this one way or the other, but it seems this can't be "news" because they claim to discover the missing link every few years.

There isn't a missing link, there are lots of "missing" links, and they're discovered on a fairly regular basis. That's the funny thing about evolution: the more we look the more we find transitional fossils. This find fills a particular gap reasonably far back in the human origins tree, and it will be interesting to see what we can find from subsequent finds.

27 posted on 04/13/2006 1:00:39 PM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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To: Alter Kaker
And still the creationist troglodytes insist that not one single "transitional" fossil has been located. Earth to creationists: you're crazy.

Are you kidding? This just creates two more missing transitional species. ;)

28 posted on 04/13/2006 1:01:41 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: conservativefreak

I'm glad the closest you can come to discrediting science is to hound upon a fraud that was uncovered by scientists (amazingly no theologian is listed among the investigators)....back in 1927. Pathetic, really.


29 posted on 04/13/2006 1:02:49 PM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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To: Alter Kaker
...amazingly no theologian is listed among the investigators...

But one is listed among the finders.

30 posted on 04/13/2006 1:04:23 PM PDT by js1138 (~()):~)>)
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To: Abcdefg

"I don't know about this one way or the other, but it seems this can't be "news" because they claim to discover the missing link every few years."

That's because everytime you find one missing link between two known genus/species/subspecies, you create two new (although smaller) gaps in the fossil record. At first you have a gap between fossils A and B. Then you find fossil C that links the two. Now you have a gap between fossils A and C, and another gap between fossils C and B. The only way not to have any more missing links between two species would be to find a fossil from every generation between the two.


31 posted on 04/13/2006 1:06:56 PM PDT by Sofa King (A wise man uses compromise as an alternative to defeat. A fool uses it as an alternative to victory.)
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placemarker


32 posted on 04/13/2006 1:11:44 PM PDT by jec41 (Screaming Eagle)
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To: HeadOn
Putting a couple of teeth and a leg bone together and coming up with what MUST be a missing link is pitiful

I suppose it might look that way to someone with no knowledge in the appropriate field.

33 posted on 04/13/2006 1:12:10 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)
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To: Alter Kaker
Kaker, this is a conservative website, not a nutjob libertarian website. You want to slander us and our faith, go to DailyKos, they'll welcome you there.

Oh, and Lucy wasn't human. Lucy was a monkey. And with certain exceptions, Men are not monkeys.
34 posted on 04/13/2006 1:15:24 PM PDT by DesScorp
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To: Abcdefg
I don't know about this one way or the other, but it seems this can't be "news" because they claim to discover the missing link every few years.

Here's what you're missing: In a chain of evolutionary sequences, there are more than just one link. There's no such thing as "the" link, or "the missing" link, there are multiple stages of transition, and it's possible to find one of them in 1995, a different one in 2002, etc.

The transitional sequence from our common ancestors with the other apes to modern humans has long been fleshed out to a very good degree, contrary to what the anti-evolutionists would have you believe. But with each passing year, yet more "intermediates of intermediates" are being discovered, like this one, which refine the transitional sequence to an ever more fine-grained degree.

And then there's the overwhelming DNA evidence...

Except to the willfully ignorant (see my tagline) any "debate" over the common ancestry of man and the other apes has long been over, it has been established beyond any reasonable doubt, via huge amounts of multiple independent lines of cross-confirming evidence.

35 posted on 04/13/2006 1:20:10 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)
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To: DesScorp

And slandering the alleged slanderer will make you a righteous man.

Put your head back in the sand.


36 posted on 04/13/2006 1:24:26 PM PDT by jmc0519
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To: Alter Kaker

There have been a multitude of "missing links" that have come and gone over the years....heck, let's take it back further to the elements...yes carbon is the missing link, linking all life from past to future.

The article is another one of those "grasping at straws" types...another yawner!


37 posted on 04/13/2006 1:26:26 PM PDT by mdmathis6 (Proof against evolution:"Man is the only creature that blushes, or needs to" M.Twain)
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To: DesScorp
Kaker, this is a conservative website, not a nutjob libertarian website. You want to slander us and our faith, go to DailyKos, they'll welcome you there.

Excuse me? You've accused me of being

1. An atheist
2. A liberal
3. A nutjob libertarian

On what grounds? I'm not sure, but you're the only one libelling people here. I'm not attacking your faith, I'm just attacking you, for rank dishonesty and for the perpetuation of stupid strawmen (i.e. evolution = atheism).

Oh, and Lucy wasn't human.

Correct and non-controversial. Nobody suggests that Lucy was anything other than A. africanus.

Lucy was a monkey.

Thanks for playing boy, but you got that one wrong. Monkeys are Cercopithecidines (old world) or Platyrrhines (new world), and I don't know of morphological evidence that suggests that Lucy isn't Hominidae in good standing. But perhaps you could enlighten me (or not).

38 posted on 04/13/2006 1:27:57 PM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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To: Senator Bedfellow
Not today. I've had enough pro-evolution tap dancing and BS to last me until next Christmas.
39 posted on 04/13/2006 1:29:38 PM PDT by manwiththehands ("Rule of law"? We don't need no stinkin' rule of law! We want amnesty, muchacho!)
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To: Senator Bedfellow
or hominid, known as Australopithecus afarensis.

You can pay big bucks to go to school to learn that archeology language or you can save your money and just call here the 'short one'...

The new fossil find consists mainly of jawbone fragments, upper and lower teeth, and a thigh bone.

Not much to go on...Maybe it was a German Shepherd...

40 posted on 04/13/2006 1:29:55 PM PDT by Iscool
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