The fossilized mandible at the discovery site.KAYE REEDA fossilized mandible and teeth from an ancient hominin has been found in Ethiopia and may be one of the earliest specimens of the genus Homo. The fossil, described in a paper in Science today (March 4), is estimated to be between 2.8 million and 2.75 million years old and exhibits a combination of Homo characteristics and those of the more primitive hominin genus, Australopithecus.
“It is a remarkable new fossil discovery from a really poorly understood timeframe in human evolutionary history,” said biological anthropologist Darryl de Ruiter of Texas A&M University who was not involved in the research. Until now, de Ruiter added, “the earliest really reliable fossil evidence we had for the appearance of Homo was about 2 million years old.” Prior to that, the fossil evidence of human ancestors was “very sparse.” The mandible is, therefore, a “welcome new addition,” he said.
The Homo genus is believed to have originated in East Africa from the more primitive and ape-like australopithecines, possibly Australopithecus afarensis, which, fossils indicate, lived around 3 million years ago. However, the fossil record for the earliest Homo, H. habilis, does not start until about ...
