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Meet the Relatives

Meet some of the most famous fossil discoveries of the hominin clan in this slide show. Read "The First Australopithecus," about the discovery of the Taung Child skull in 1925. [gallery columns="4"]

By | July 1, 2012

Australopithecus afarensisWikipedia

Australopithecus afarensisWikipedia

Australopithecus afarensisWikipedia
1856: Neandertal 1 (Homo neanderthalensis)Our closest human relatives, the Neanderthals went extinct around 28,000 years ago—well after modern humans migrated into Neanderthal territory in Europe and the Near East. The first Neanderthal fossil, and quite possibly the first hominin fossil ever discovered, was dug up in Engis, Belgium in the winter of 1829 and 1830. However, Neanderthals were not recognized as an early human species until 1856, with the discovery of a 40,000-year-old specimen, dubbed Neandertal 1, in the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf, Germany.Wikipedia
1891: The Java Man (Homo erectus)The Java Man was originally given the scientific name Pithecanthropus erectus, which means “upright ape-man,” by its discoverer, Eugène Dubois. The roughly 1.8 million-year-old fossil, which consisted of a skullcap, a femur, and a few teeth, was the oldest hominin ever found at the time of its discovery in 1891. Although the Homo erectus are considered direct ancestors of modern humans, the Java Man belonged to an Asian population of the species, which anthropologists believe did not directly give rise to the modern human lineage. Wikipedia
1925: The Taung Child (Australopithecus africanus) In November of 1924, Raymond Dart (pictured above), an Australian anatomy professor at the University of Witerwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, received a parcel containing an approximately 2.5-million-year-old fossil skull and matching endocast that had been dug up from a nearby limestone quarry at Taung, South Africa. By early 1925, Dart had published a paper in Nature classifying the fossil as a new hominin species: Australopithecus africanus. While the Taung skull had human-like characteristics such as small canines, a steep forehead, and a spinal cord alignment that suggested bipedalism, Taung’s brain size was closer to that of a nonhuman ape—prompting contemporary anthropologists to group the extinct species with gorillas and chimpanzees. It wasn’t until 1932 that A. africanus was classified as a hominin, and not until the 1940s, as more Australopithecus fossils were identified, that the field began to accept Taung. SCIENCE SOURCE
1959: Zinjanthropus boisei (now classified as Australopithecus boisei)Estimated to have lived between 1.75 million years ago, the A. boisei specimen was the first hominin fossil discovered by the famous paleoanthropology duo: Louis and Mary Leakey. A. bosei belongs to a particularly robust group of australopithecines, referred to by some as the Paranthropus, which are characterized by large skulls, wide and flaring cheek bones, and very large molars—suggesting a diet of tough, fiber-rich foods. The Turkana Basin Institute
1960: The Handy Man (Homo habilis)Less than a year after the discovery of A. boisei, Mary Leaky and her son Jonathan discovered a set of bones, which included a lower mandible with 13 teeth and 21 finger, hand, and wrist bones, in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. The 1.7-million-year-old specimen was named Olduvai Hominid ? 7 (OH 7). Similar fossils discovered throughout the early 1960s revealed a species intermediate between the older, more ape-like Australopithecus and the more recent and human-like Homo lineages. More importantly, the fossils were found in the same stratigraphic layer as simple, stone tools called Oldowan tools, making them, at the time, the earliest proto-human to used stone tools. In 1964, the Leakys described the species as Homo habilis—the earliest member of the Homo family—in Nature. It was Raymond Dart, who discovered the Taung Child skull in 1925, who suggested the name Homo habilis—meaning “handy man.” The finding was fiercely debated for years—with some paleoanthropologists clamoring to have the classification changed to Australopithecus africanus. Nowadays, many experts believe H. habilis to be a direct ancestor of modern humans.Wikipedia
1974: Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis)One of the most famous of the hominin fossils, the approximately 3.2-million-year-old Lucy was discovered in 1974 in the Afar Desert region of Northern Ethiopia by a team of paleoanthropologists led by then-associate professor of anthropology at Case Western Reserve University, Donald Johanson. The several hundred bone fragments that were discovered represent only 40 percent of the specimen’s skeleton, yet much information can be gleaned from it. For example, the morphology of its knee suggests Lucy was primarily an upright walker. However, the size of its skull was still strikingly small—providing more evidence that bipedalism and other human-like features preceded larger brain sizes (see the discovery of the Taung Child skull in 1925.)
1978: The Laetoli Footprints (Australopithecus afarensis)Another major discovery by the Leaky family, was a set of 59 footprints dating to at least 3.5 million years ago that were preserved in volcanic ash in a site in Northern Tanzania known as Laetoli. The footprints look almost like those of modern humans, and were presumably made by Lucy’s kind—Australopithecus afarensis.WikipediaWikipedia
1985: The Black Skull (Australopithecus aethiopicus) Dating nearly 2.5 million years, the complete skull of Australopithecus aethiopicus belongs to perhaps the earliest of the robust australopithecines—an Australopithecus branch characterized by large skulls, wide and flaring cheek bones, and very large molars (see Australopithecus boisei). The fossil was nicknamed “Black Skull” because of it was stained black by the manganese-rich soils of the Lake Turkana region of Ethiopia, were it was found.Wikipedia, Nrkpan
1992: Ardi (Ardipithecus ramidus) Dating more than 4 million years old, Ardipithecus ramidus represents one of the earliest hominid species known. The partial skeleton of “Ardi,” which includes the skull, teeth, pelvis, hands, feet and other bones, reveals a mix of primitive and more human-like traits and offers researchers a glimpse of what the last common ancestor of humans and modern apes may have looked like. One of the more surprising aspects of Ardi, is that it has many features that are not found in humans or modern apes—suggesting that modern apes have also evolved extensively over the past 6 million years. Wikipedia
1996: (Australopithecus garhi) This new species, described in 1999 in Science, dates back approximately 2.5 million years and, like most new hominin fossil discoveries, is not without its share of controversy. One of its most controversial attributes relates to the fact that it was discovered near primitive stone tools—challenging Homo habilis’ title as the earliest toolmakers. B. Asfaw, et. al., Science 23 April 1999

Meet the Relatives Image Gallery

Australopithecus afarensisWikipedia

Meet some of the most famous fossil discoveries of the hominin clan in this slide show.

Read "The First Australopithecus," about the discovery of the Taung Child skull in 1925.

[gallery columns="4"]

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Comments

Avatar of: EARTHMAN1

EARTHMAN1

Posts: 10

July 17, 2012

Oh c'mon.

If Australopithicus had such intelligent eyes he/she wouldn't be walking around naked. They would have had haircuts, cool clothing and drive a Buick.

Even as a child I could never figure out why Anthropologists insisted on making this crap up. 

Avatar of: Edward R. Mikol

Edward R. Mikol

Posts: 1457

July 18, 2012

Standing more and more upright would increase direct radiation exposure to the top of the head which may have spurred brain cell mutations through cosmic rays, etc. and hastened human evolution via a kind of a self-rewarding feed-back mechanism.

Avatar of: SpadesareSpades

SpadesareSpades

Posts: 2

July 18, 2012

Dale in another of his lives

Avatar of: SpadesareSpades

SpadesareSpades

Posts: 2

July 18, 2012

Dale in an earlier life.

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