© 1998 David L. Brill/Brill Atlanta
A westward view of Ethiopia's Middle Awash Valley, from the Central Awash complex near Aramis.
In a dusty, barren area in the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia, about 140 miles northeast of Addis Ababa, lies a place that holds unique renown among paleontologists. Over the eons, seasonal rains have washed out and exposed bits of the past, including a spectacular, if scattered, assemblage of human ancestors. Here, a triangular area, 310 miles per side, cradles an estimated six million years of prehistory, in rare pockets within mile-thick sediment. "Whenever it rains, new fossils are revealed," explains Yohannes Haile-Selassie, curator of physical anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
Recently published fossil finds from the area, each representing years of collection, preparation, and analysis, bracket in time what we know of our past. Over the last 20 years, paleontologists have uncovered a few of ...
