4 million-year-old human skeleton found by Cleveland team in Ethiopia

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1110018903236120.xml


4 snips from the story:
Digging in the hardscrabble hills of northern Ethiopia, a fossil-hunting team led by Cleveland Museum of Natural History paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie has found a rare prize - the partial skeleton of a nearly 4 million-year-old human ancestor.

Until now, researchers reported finding only four partially complete skeletons from the entire span of human pre-history. The most famous of those is "Lucy," the stubby 3.2 million-year-old skeleton unearthed in 1974 by Donald Johanson when he was the Cleveland museum's curator of physical anthropology, the post Haile-Selassie now holds.

In a brief e-mail communication, they described the skeleton as a "once-in-a-lifetime discovery." The fossils recovered so far - vertebrae, ribs, pelvis, leg bones, a collarbone and a complete shoulder blade - "will tell us how our 4 million-year-old ancestors walked and how tall they were," the two scientists said.

They will not be able to determine what early human species the skeletal bones represent until the fossils are carefully cleaned and compared with samples in museum collections. They also must perform chemical tests to pin down the age of the rock layers that surrounded the fossils.

It reminds me that we're all just a part of something huge, like waves in the ocean.

Some people say that the "theory" of evoultion diminishes man, makes us just another animal. I can't understand that. It's a nice thought to be a part of nature in such a profound way. We are literally related to every other living being on the planet. The fly that's buzzing in my window right now is a distant relative. That puts things in perspective. We weren't beamed down here 4000 years ago to exploit the earth as we see fit and leave it desolate after we self-destruct.

I told her to hang on. That every piece of matter in this universe is just a small fragment of a larger piece. It calms my anxieties and put a smile on her face.

realize how insignificant we really are. On the other, it's hard to believe we can do so much damage to our surroundings.

This is a really cool find.

as the Earth was created 4000 years before Christ. :+

:evilgrin:

Darn, God, why do you have to test me like this... wait... MUST ERASE RATIONAL THOUGHT.... MUST ERASE RATIONAL THOUGHT.... Ah, that's much better. Now I know how Abraham felt.

and not go nanny nanny boo boo to the fundies who think this way who I'm sure are more of a minority than we think.

The interesting thing is how messed up the old conventional wisdom has become regarding our "familiy tree". Seems with every new discovery there's a new species of homo or australopithecus or what they're calling them now. It's not my field at all, but it's extremely fascinating. The picture that seems to be emerging is that our family used to be a tree with many branches, but for some reason we're the only ones left. I think they're now pretty sure humanoids walked on two legs 6 million years ago, which is almost twice as long ago as was previously assumed, based on remains found a couple of years ago. Please correct me if I'm wrong though.

The old ilustration of how the ape gradually became man erect through successive stages of development is getting more outdated than ever.

...by quite a significant stretch of time. It's true. The most valuable parts of a hominid skeleton, to an anthropologist, are the pelvis and skull, because the former tells you about posture, and the latter tells you about cranial capacity.

And, when you only have 5 members of a species to work with, every new discovery re-writes the whole tree. It's kinda frustrating. So many gaps in the knowledge that everyone has their own interpretation to fill in the blanks. Fascinating stuff, though.

I imagine the truth is still quite different from the picture we have today then. It's fascinating how they're able to discern so much from such sparse evidence.

We were gonna go aquatic. Lotta adaptations in place, just waiting for the right moment to get that permeable skin and go for it.

6 million years ago the Ross Ice Shelf (which is melting now) formed. We couldn't stay on the beach without fresh water and that was farther away. The nice safe caves we used to drink in were now too far from the beach. We had to go back to the land for the water.

Evidence says that was a dark time for us. We were eating AFTER the jackals got thru with a carcass. It was get smarter or die, seeing as we had NO PHYSICAL DEFENSES AT ALL. And did I mention, hairless? Butt naked? If we could actually manage to kill something, we could eat it, then wear it.

We're sorta quite a success story. Nets may have had something to do with it.

is controversial among people who do this for a living, but it makes a lot of sense to me. Which doesn't say much, arguably. But it's a fascinating theory.

They believe six impossible things before breakfast.

We have salt water adaptations. We still need fresh water to drink. We were small, naked, pathetically defenseless and delicious. We couldn't drink at open water holes. We found our water in caves (how? pythons. No one can explain why the python is so sacred that at least one country in Africa outlaws harming them in its constitution. Pythons dangle from trees and slither into water. If you spotted a python in a tree above a cave, it meant the water inside was accessible. Leading to worldwide myths about snakes, water, trees, caves, sacred streams, and the beginnings of human beings.

I would love to be a Gill Man

They are going to make the rest of the country stupid if they have their way.

Any god that needs to lie to me to "test my faith" is not a god I would willingly worship. Truth ought to be one of any deity's highest values.

I was just suggesting that maybe someone needs a little nap.

Of fundies that think this way. Everyday I am bombarded with this kind of thought.

And yes I am going to nanny nanny boo boo this, and also revel in this scientific discovery.:nopity:

that at least half, maybe more, of American adults believe in the literal Biblical creation story. It's not all just Fundie whack jobs either, I read that 1/4 of Kerry voters believe in literal creationism.

The level of scientific illiteracy in this country is astounding.

That said, it is a wonderful discovery for those of us who can appreciate it and who have a genuine interest in how our species got here. I hope they're able to learn alot from it, and I wish our early ancestors had had the decency to live in an area where fossils form more easily.:P

them until they go the way of these fossils.

on a different note -- i love this stuff -- and i can't wait to hear more about this -- and see if he/she was related to lucy.

You mean the direction they're taking the US right now?

One of my kids recently had lunch with a school classmate. The classmate was saying how eagerly she was to get her drivers license so she could get a truck (this is Texas, if you haven't guessed). My child told her she didn't need a vehicle except to haul herself around and a small car would do just fine. She told her we had to be aware of what we are doing to the environment.

The girl responded global warming was not an issue because in the near future believers would be wisked away in the rapture. She said she thought a black Ford F150 would be nice.

I sadly think there are more and more fundies all the time. I hear it too much.

Sounds like a weak and feeble faith to me. I would think something as incredible as a 4 million year old skeleton would reinforce a reverence toward the universe as a creation.

Yet the fundies are called out once again as the charlatans and self-loathing fools warped by their own guilt ridden disbeliefs. If only they would keep their ignorance and denial to themselves, it would be a less embarrasing spectacle. "See johnny... there is nothing to fear."

But no... they must spread their idiocy far and wide, only to try to control the uncontrollable - man kind and nature itself.

Live and Let Live...

I am not related to Chimpy.

Lucifer is testing our faith again people

We are family!

If evolution deniers would just think of it in terms of "genealogy", they'd get a little excited about the wonder of it all. And it is wondrous and great...

is this fellow a decendant of the Ethiopian Emperor Haile-Selassie?

eom