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Scientists find our `oldest immediate ancestors` in Africa
Paris, June 12: Scientists believe they have found our oldest immediate ancestors, a finding that sheds fresh light on homosapiens` rise out of Africa and his conquest of the globe.
Paris, June 12: Scientists believe they have found our oldest immediate ancestors, a finding that sheds fresh light on homosapiens` rise out of Africa and his conquest of the globe.
The skulls of two adults and a child, found in 1997 in the Middle Awash area of central Ethiopia, have been carbon-dated to between 154,000 and 160,000 years old, around 50,000 years earlier than the previous oldest finds of homosapiens.
That provides solid proof for the "out of Africa" theory and confirms that the enigmatic hominids known as neanderthals were not our distant parents, the authors say.
The fossils, dubbed as homosapiens idaltu ("idaltu" meaning "elder" in the afar language of Ethiopias). Provide crucial evidence on the location, timing and contextual circumstances of the emergence of homosapiens," they report on Thursday in ‘Nature’, the British weekly science journal.
"They... represent the probably immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans. Their anatomy and antiquity constitute strong evidence of modern-human emergence in Africa."
Pieced together from fossilised fragments in an agonising long game of 3-d jigsaw puzzles, the skulls have deep faces and long, rugged cases that enclosed large brains.
They resemble modern crania in the face, top of the skull and brain capacity, which at around 1,450 cubic centimetres compares with anatomically modern man`s average today of between 1,350 and 1,400 cc.
Bureau Report
That provides solid proof for the "out of Africa" theory and confirms that the enigmatic hominids known as neanderthals were not our distant parents, the authors say.
The fossils, dubbed as homosapiens idaltu ("idaltu" meaning "elder" in the afar language of Ethiopias). Provide crucial evidence on the location, timing and contextual circumstances of the emergence of homosapiens," they report on Thursday in ‘Nature’, the British weekly science journal.
"They... represent the probably immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans. Their anatomy and antiquity constitute strong evidence of modern-human emergence in Africa."
Pieced together from fossilised fragments in an agonising long game of 3-d jigsaw puzzles, the skulls have deep faces and long, rugged cases that enclosed large brains.
They resemble modern crania in the face, top of the skull and brain capacity, which at around 1,450 cubic centimetres compares with anatomically modern man`s average today of between 1,350 and 1,400 cc.
Bureau Report