Posted on 07/11/2007 2:24:24 PM PDT by blam
Ethiopia unveils new find of ancient fossils
Tue Jul 10, 2007 12:13PM EDT
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian scientists said on Tuesday they have discovered hominid fossil fragments dating from between 3.5 million and 3.8 million years ago in what could fill a crucial gap in the understanding of human evolution.
Ethiopian archaeologist Yohannes Haile Selassie said the find included several complete jaws and one partial skeleton and were unearthed in the Afar desert at Woranso-Mille, near where the famous fossil skeleton known as Lucy was found in 1974.
"This is a major finding that could fill a gap in human evolution," he told a news conference in Addis Ababa.
"The fossil hominids from the Woranso-Mille area sample a time period that is poorly known in human evolutionary study."
Researchers say the area, about 140 miles northeast of Addis, boasts the most continuous record of human evolution.
Last year, an international team of scientists unveiled the discovery of 4.1 million-year-old fossils in the region.
Lucy, the most famous find, lived between 3.3 million and 3.6 million years ago. But Yohannes said Afar had yielded early hominid fossil remains spanning the last 6 million years.
"This has placed Ethiopia in the forefront of paleoanthropology," he told reporters.
"Ethiopia is known to the world as the cradle of humankind."
No. It's very alkaline/chalky there, things don't disolve.
That's partly my complaint, because things last forever there, archaeologists built theories around the age of these objects...such as, 'Out Of Africa'. We could be 'Out Of A lot Of Places' but the evidence has disolved away due to the acidity of the soil/region elsewhere.
"Glory to God."
"Mr Joe, we'd like for you to step downtown."
All humans are very closely related genetically. Even most Macroevolutionists recognize that homo sapiens has a common ancestry.
Probably volcanic deposition which can cover strata forever unless erosion or continental movement shifts the topography. The fossils at Olduvai Gorge were preserved for millions of years until the changes in surface conditions exposed them. Even found fossilized footprints at Laetoli made by Australopithecenes.
Isn't everything evos find "crucial" since they have so many gaps to fill?
They have so many "gaps to fill" because with all the finds the gaps keep getting more numerous, but you should also remember that the gaps keep getting smaller!
But admit it! You don't really care what they find because you deny it all anyway.
You read me like a book. Too bad you won't read the Bible the same way.
“This is a major finding that could create two new gaps in human evolution,”
The fossils at Olduvai Gorge were preserved for millions of years until the changes in surface conditions exposed them.
___________________________________________________
Maybe so. But can anyone fathom a few million years were everything is static in nature and human remains are preserved undisturbed?
It doesn’t seem realistic from an evolutionary standpoint.
I thought everything was chaotic and in flux during the heady days of evolution.
This guy works for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The article makes it sound like it was a total Ethiopian deal. There were scientists from The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Addis Ababa University, Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland), and Berkeley Geochronology Center.
http://www.cmnh.org/site/AboutUs_PressRoom_Jul2007WMP.aspx
(Also, Donald Johanson was the curator of the museum when he discovered “Lucy” back in 1974.)
There is no "gaps" for the Bible to fill in. It is whole and not in parts like evolution. There is no need to search for more evidence with the Bible. It is all recorded and complete.
Everything depends on the nature of the matrix, the thickness of the strata deposited and the relative type of terrain the deposits were laid down in. In areas of continuing volcanism as was the case for Olduvai, there are 7 major layers...some a few hundred feet deep which were deposited one above the other for over 2 million years. Until the upheaval in the crust caused faulting and exposure of those sediments, they safely and effectively preserved those remains as well as crude artifacts which came much later in human history.
Is it any wonder that the best place in the world for preserving ancient bones is the same place where the most/oldest are found?Oh, c'mon, that's just a weird coincidence. ;')
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Early Volcano Victims DiscoveredWhole communities of ape-like creatures may have been killed in East Africa 18 million years ago by the once active volcano Kisingiri. Proconsul lived in a semi-arid environment close to the mountain and the research suggests they may have been caught by a pyroclastic flow. The abundance of the hominoid fossils may represent "death assemblages" - whole populations wiped out simultaneously by "glowing cloud" eruptions. The fossils of the Rusinga Formation form a crucial link between the early primates of the forest habitats, and human forerunners of the more open-country habitat, who lived in drier conditions than had been supposed, on a landscape that experienced repeated volcanic eruption.
BBC News
Monday, May 3, 1999
Footprints to Fill:The case for A. afarensis as the Laetoli trailblazer hinges on the fact that fossils of the species are known from the site and that the only available reconstruction of what this hominid's foot looked like is compatible with the morphology evident in the footprints. But in a presentation given at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting in April, William E. H. Harcourt-Smith of the American Museum of Natural History and Charles E. Hilton of Western Michigan University took issue with the latter assertion.
Flat feet and doubts about
makers of the Laetoli tracks
by Kate Wong
August 1, 2005
Scientific American
The prints show that whoever made them had a humanlike foot arch, and the reconstructed A. afarensis foot exhibits just such an arch. So far, so good. The problem, Harcourt-Smith and Hilton say, is that the reconstruction is actually based on a patchwork of bones from 3.2-million-year-old afarensis and 1.8-million-year-old Homo habilis. And one of the bones used to determine whether the foot was in fact arched--the so-called navicular--is from H. habilis, not A. afarensis.
the preceding posted here:
Israeli researchers: ‘Lucy’ is not direct ancestor of humans
jpost.com | 4-16-2007 | JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Posted on 04/16/2007 11:51:39 AM EDT by bedolido
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1818187/posts
Those coonhounds in your homepage?
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