Oldest member of human family found

Nature ^ | 07/11/2002 | John Whitfield

[SkyRat]

"really?!?!? Share them with me!!!"

It's not a secret, you know. Just enter "black hole" in the search engine of Freerepublic. That should be obivoius but if you need help, just ask

[Physicist]

Lowland Gorilla (note the "crest" on top of the skull, not present on the 7MA skull, and the very thick bony "ring" around the skull):

You need to be a little careful when it comes to crests. Male gorillas have them, but the females don't. They are developmental features rather than genetic features. The action of the big, strong jaw muscles pulling on the skull causes the sagittal crest to form. If you could scale up a chimpanzee (say, by injecting it with enough growth hormones), it will probably form one.

The flatness of the face of this new fossil suggests a hominid and not an ape, but that could be due either to deformation in the rock or problems with reconstruction.

So the overall morphology of the skull may be consistent with an ape, if you stretch things a bit. But the real key to identifying a hominid is the teeth, and the teeth of this fossil say it's probably a hominid. But as you say, a real missing link will share features of both apes and men.

[Burkeman1]

Hey- I don't know or pretend to. But until I see some evidence of evolution as it is currently explained I will not be an adherent. I happen to think that cross mating was very possible in eatly earth history.

[SunkenCiv]

Not a ping, just a GGG update.

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[cmsgop]

Thats No Baboon Dan, Thats my Shih-Tzu......

[SunkenCiv]

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