ABOVE: According to a new study, the hands of the hominin Ardipithecus are much more like chimpanzee hands than human hands (illustrated here).
© ISTOCK.COM, LOGARYPHMIC
The chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) is the closest living relative of humans, with the two species diverging about 6 million years ago. One of the best clues about the last common ancestor of people and chimps is the oldest discovered hominin skeleton, that of a human ancestor named Ardipithecus ramidus that lived about 4.4 million years ago.
In previous work, researchers deduced that Ardipithecus moved through the trees over the tops of branches, but didn’t swing from them, meaning that the last common ancestor of chimps and people probably moved in this way as well. But a new analysis of the hand of Ardipithecus, published today (February 24) in Science Advances, indicates that the hominin was likely capable of swinging beneath the branches of trees, as ...
