Before Lucy came Ardi, new earliest hominid found

[tabatha]

A MUCH better headline, and story


WASHINGTON – The story of humankind is reaching back another million years as scientists learn more about "Ardi," a hominid who lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. The 110-pound, 4-foot female roamed forests a million years before the famous Lucy, long studied as the earliest skeleton of a human ancestor.

This older skeleton reverses the common wisdom of human evolution, said anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University.

Rather than humans evolving from an ancient chimp-like creature, the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved from some long-ago common ancestor — but each evolved and changed separately along the way.

"This is not that common ancestor, but it's the closest we have ever been able to come," said Tim White, director of the Human Evolution Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

The lines that evolved into modern humans and living apes probably shared an ancestor 6 million to 7 million years ago, White said in a telephone interview.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_sc/us_sci_before_lucy

[Taverner]

1. I've always wondered if interbreeding ever occurred...

We used to think Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon mated - but given the lack of Neanderthal DNA in our blood, chances aren't likely.

We did eat them however...

[tabatha]

2. It is an ever fascinating story.

I am so thankful for the researchers who spend time on this.

[Stevenmarc]

3. 4.4 million years, she doesn't look a day over 6,000

[tabatha]

4. lol