4.4 million-year-old pre-human ancestor "Ardi" discovered

William Atkins
Friday, 02 October 2009 18:58

Science - Biology

An international team of researchers has unearthed the ancient remains of a 4.4 million year old species of hominid that opens up secrets about our past that were unknown to us, at least until now.


According to the October 1, 2009 Science article Ancient Skeleton May Rewrite Earliest Chapter of Human Evolution, “Researchers have unveiled the oldest known skeleton of a putative human ancestor--and it is full of surprises.”

The research performed over the past fifteen years shows that this 4.4 million year old pre-human ancestor to modern humans, whose species name is Ardipithecus ramidus, was more like humans than apes and chimpanzees—something that scientists didn’t think happened during this part of our evolution.

U.S. paleoanthropologist Tim D. White Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley) led the team who unearthed the discovered.

They discovered the ancient remains of a group of these creatures in the Afar Depression in the Middle Awash region of Ethiopia (Africa).

The species lived about 4.4 million years ago in the early Pliocene epoch (or Pleiocene epoch), which occurred from 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago.

In all, White’s international team found pieces of thirty-six males, females, and children at the Middle Awash site.

Additional information on this discovery appears on page two, along with where to go on the Web for comprehensive information on A. ramidus.