Selam, the world's oldest baby
Posted on 09/20/2006 10:26:20 AM PDT by aculeus
The 3.3-million-year-old fossilised remains of a human-like child have been unearthed in Ethiopia's Dikika region.
The female bones are from the species Australopithecus afarensis , which is popularly known from the adult skeleton nicknamed "Lucy".
Scientists are thrilled with the find, reported in the journal Nature.
They believe the near-complete remains offer a remarkable opportunity to study growth and development in an important extinct human ancestor.
The skeleton was first identified in 2000, locked inside a block of sandstone. It has taken five years of painstaking work to free the bones.
"The Dikika fossil is now revealing many secrets about Australopithecus afarensis and other early hominins, because the fossil evidence was not there," said dig leader Zeresenay Alemseged, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
Delicate bones
The find consists of the whole skull, the entire torso and important parts of the upper and lower limbs. CT scans reveal unerupted teeth still in the jaw, a detail that makes scientists think the individual may have been about three years old when she died.
Remarkably, some quite delicate bones not normally preserved in the fossilisation process are also present, such as the hyoid, or tongue, bone. The hyoid bone reflects how the voice box is built and perhaps what sounds a species can produce.
Judging by how well it was preserved, the skeleton may have come from a body that was quickly buried by sediment in a flood, the researchers said.
"In my opinion, afarensis is a very good transitional species for what was before four million years ago and what came after three million years," Dr Alemseged told BBC science correspondent Pallab Ghosh.
"[The species had] a mixture of ape-like and human-like features. This puts afarensis in a special position to play a pivotal role in the story of what we are and where we come from."
Climbing ability
This early ancestor possessed primitive teeth and a small brain but it stood upright and walked on two feet.
There is considerable argument about whether the Dikika girl could also climb trees like an ape.
This climbing ability would require anatomical equipment like long arms, and the "Lucy" species had arms that dangled down to just above the knees. It also had gorilla-like shoulder blades which suggest it could have been skilled at swinging through trees. But the question is whether such features indicate climbing ability or are just "evolutionary baggage".
The Dikika girl had an estimated brain size of 330 cubic centimetres when she died, which is not very different from that of a similarly aged chimpanzee. However, when compared to the adult afarensis values, it forms 63 - 88% of the adult brain size.
This is lower than that of an adult chimp, where by the age of three, over 90% of the brain is formed. This relatively slow brain growth in the Dikika girl appears to be slightly closer to that of humans.
Slow, gradual development in an extended childhood is regarded as a very human trait - probably to enable our higher functions to develop.
Professor Fred Spoor of University College London said the find would give scientists a "detailed insight into how our distant relatives grew up and behaved... at a time of human evolution when they looked a good deal more like bipedal chimpanzees than like us."
The "Lucy" skeleton, discovered in Hadar, Ethiopia, in 1974 belongs to the same species as the Dikika girl. For more than 20 years it was the oldest human ancestor known to science.
Published: 2006/09/20 17:05:09 GMT
© BBC MMVI
Plagerism is one of those intellectual crimes I cannot stomach. I chalk it up to nearly a quarter century as a journalist and editor. Plagerism would get you fired from such a position because of the legal ramifications; some internet nobody just trying to impress the girls with his (stolen) wit should be treated no less severely.
It would appear that a moderator here has already taken action.
And what exactly is 'plagerism'?
On the Internet nobody knows you're not a 'journalist and editor'.
It is an anger-induced poor spelling of "plagiarism." -5 for spelling.
That's the American Way: misspell and trademark.
It would appear that a moderator here has already taken action.
Good. Maybe now we can get back to the subject at hand.
That is, if MadeInAmerica has any interest in actually defending his factually incorrect statements. It should be interesting - he's made a lot of 'em.
There have been several links found between man and ape. This is one of them.
You are mistaken if you think there is a "missing link."
You think it's okay to steal someone else's work without attribution?
I have an archeology meeting tonight here in Richmond. If we talk about the find I'll let you guys know.
Problem is...they may be addictive.
By definition the 'missing' link will always remain missing.
However, we do have a large number of 'found' links between Homo sapien and our common ancestor with Pan. Will those 'found' links suffice to assuage Darwin's doubts? I suspect so (if he were alive).
What a wonderful comment. Except of course that it is meaningless.
My Great-grandmother had a child die when he was only 5 years old. They buried him on the old farmstead. My Great-grandmother died some years later at the ripe old age of 92. She was buried in a cemetery. Not that I would want to, but if we dug up the bones of the 5 year old and my Great-grandmother what could we conclude?
Now this situation is different from my great-grandmother's but the example just goes to show how it is possible for some of the members of our ancestor population(s) to have died young, and some to have died a wee bit older.
"That's how science works, doncha know?! 50, 100 years ago, this find would have meant something entirely different. That's how science works, bay-bee!"
Its really too bad that you haven't a clue as to how science works.
50, 100 years ago, had the scientists of the day had the same fossils available to them that we do, the conclusions would have been the same.
You see, that's because the more evidence we have, the more data points we can examine, the more precise the conclusion.
It can be considered plagiarism if you don't cite the quote.
It is also important for readers to be able to check the source.
The difference being your quotes are presented in such a way as to make the author appear to be saying the opposite of what he is saying. Darwinists (and neo-darwinists) include the entire message behind the quote so that it cannot be misunderstood.
well, as back-monkeys go, there are worse ones to choose.
And the back child support bill is staggering.
My pleasure. :')
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Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. |
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