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[Press Release] ETHIOPIAN SKULL FIND HELPS PIECE TOGETHER PUZZLE
Arthur R. McGee (amcgee@NETCOM.COM)
Wed, 13 Apr 1994 07:26:49 -0700
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 05:32:54 -0400
From: NSF Document Mailer <stisop@stis.nsf.gov>
Subject: [Press Release] ETHIOPIAN SKULL FIND HELPS PIECE TOGETHER PUZZLE OF HUM
AN ORIGIN
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Title : ETHIOPIAN SKULL FIND HELPS PIECE TOGETHER PUZZLE OF HUMAN ORIGIN
Type : Press Release
NSF Org: OD / LPA
Date : March 31, 1994
File : pr9424
Michael Fluharty March 31, 1994
(703) 306-1070 NSF PR 94-24
ETHIOPIAN SKULL FIND HELPS PIECE
TOGETHER PUZZLE OF HUMAN ORIGIN
A National Science Foundation-funded expedition in
Ethiopia has found a three million-year-old skull
thought to be from humankind's earliest known
ancestors, scientists reported today [March 31] in the
British journal Nature.
According to the paleoanthropologists, William
Kimbel and Donald Johanson from the Institute of Human
Origins in Berkeley, Ca., and Yoel Rak of Tel Aviv
University, this is the first time a nearly complete
skull has been found from the ancient pre-human species
Australopithecus afarensis. Perhaps the species' best-
known specimen is "Lucy," discovered at Hadar in
Ethiopia in 1974 by Johanson.
The recent discovery of the skull, with its ape-
like jutting jaw, small braincase and thick protruding
ridges above the eyes, helps support the theories of
paleoanthropologists who maintain that all three to
four million-year-old fossils found in Ethiopia's Afar
region come from one species. They conclude that this
species later evolved into the lineage that includes
modern humans.
According to the scientists, the discovery means
that this small-brained, upright-walking pre-human with
an ape-like body existed for nearly one million years
(four to three million years ago) without significant
change, or nearly 200,000 years more than previously
thought.
-more-
-2-
Kimbel, Johanson, and Rak maintain that these
primitive upright-walking creatures did not diversify
into distinct lineages until some time after
three million years ago. They say the discovery
supports their view that all pre-human specimens found
in the region represent the same species, a species in
which males were considerably larger than females.
These scientists and others are countered by
colleagues who believe that the variations in fossil
size and other features are too great to have come from
a single species. According to this other view, there
was a more "robust" species of larger boned creatures,
whose lineage is now extinct, which lived at the same
time as the smaller species, which evolved into humans.
In their view, the two distinct lines had already
diverged before the time of Lucy, more than three
million years ago.
According to NSF physical anthropology program
director Jonathan Friedlaender, the East African Rift
Valley remains the "most productive source of early
proto-human fossil finds in the world." NSF programs
support excavations at Hadar and other nearby sites
because these results provide important information
about man's earliest non-ape, but very ape-like,
ancestors, he says.
Rak and his assistants found the skull in
fragments on a hillside near a dry river bed. It is
one of 53 such fossils found in the area during the
past four years by the IHO team and their Ethiopian
colleagues.
The age of the skull was determined by its
location between two layers of volcanic rock. Because
the rock contains potassium, the rate at which
potassium radioactively decays can be used to
accurately date each layer using a technique called
single crystal laser fusion, which compares the ratios
of two isotopes in single rock crystals.
-end-
The National Science Foundation is an independent
agency of the federal government established in 1950 to
promote and advance scientific progress in the United
States. NSF accomplishes its mission primarily by
competitively awarding grants to educational
institutions for research and education in the
sciences, mathematics, and engineering.
This and other information is available electronically
on STIS, NSF's Science and Technology Information
System. For more information about STIS contact the
Publications Section at (703) 306-1130 and request the
"STIS Flyer," NSF Publication #94-4, or send an E-mail
message to stisinfo@nsf.gov (INTERNET) or stisinfo@NSF
(BITNET).
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-----------------------------
Art McGee [amcgee@netcom.com]
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