SCIENCE-HUMANS/ETHIOPIA FOSSIL Ethiopian jawbone fossil indicates earlier human origins

Record ID: 632969

  • Title: SCIENCE-HUMANS/ETHIOPIA FOSSIL Ethiopian jawbone fossil indicates earlier human origins
  • Date: 5th March 2015
  • Summary: PHOTOGRAPH OF THE FOSSIL
  • Embargoed: 20th March 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA81PSEH8H3CLJAZX0IZW9IPL1P
  • Story Text: A 2.8-million-year-old jawbone fossil with five intact teeth unearthed in an Ethiopian desert has pushed back back the known beginnings of humankind by about half a million years.
    Scientists said on Thursday (March 5) the fossil represents the oldest known representative of the human genus Homo and appears to be a previously unknown species from the human lineage's earliest phases.
    Our species, Homo sapiens, appeared only 200,000 years ago, following a procession of others in the same genus.
    Until now, the oldest known remains from the human genus were about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old and from the species Homo habilis.
    "We discovered a mandible that is 2.8 million years old. It is of the genus homo and it pushes the origin of the genus homo back to that time period for almost four hundred thousand years earlier. And it's important because it is transitional between Australopithecus species, it has some of those characteristics and of later homo species and so we can follow evolution more closely because of it," said archaeologist Professor Kaye E. Reed.
    The jawbone was found in 2013 in north-eastern Ethiopia's Afar region about 40 miles (64 km) from where the remains of 'Lucy', one of the most famous fossils of a human ancestor, were discovered in 1974.
    Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, immediately preceded the Homo genus.
    The anatomy of the new fossil, encompassing the left side of the lower jaw, suggests a close relationship with later Homo species.
    It boasted features including tooth shape and jaw proportions that separate early Homo lineage species from the more ape-like Australopithecus. But its sloping chin still has hints of Lucy.
    "The mandible is very significant because it is between an older species, Lucy's species, and a younger species, for example Homohabilis, that came from Hadar, Ethiopia, and so we can see how evolution works by having some of the older characteristics of Lucy's species plus the new characteristics of the homo species in this mandible," Reed said.
    The Homo genus developed larger brains and tool use and began eating meat.
    "Sediments that it was found in are 2.8 million and that is 400 thousand years older than the previous known homo. So, it pushes the evolution of homo back 400 thousand years," said Reed.
    A separate study in the journal Nature provided a fresh analysis of a Homo habilis lower jaw from 1.8 million years ago, showing it was unexpectedly primitive and resembled the much older newly-discovered jawbone.
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