3.8-Million-Year-Old Skull of Australopithecus anamensis Found

Australopithecus anamensis is considered to be Lucy´s (Australopithecus afarensis) ancestor and also it is one of the oldest species known within the Australopithecus genre. Prior to the discovery of this new Australopithecus skull, scientist could only extract information from teeth and mandible fragments, which were dated between 4.2-3.9 years old.

The facial reconstruction of MRD. Image credit: John Gurche / Susan & George Klein / Matt Crow / Cleaveland Museum of Natural History

The cranium was unveiled by an international team of paleoanthropologists in Ethiopia. The skull’s rare almost-complete state, allowed scientist to obtain very valuable information from it: they identified new facial characteristics which were never seen before in this species: “the skull has a combination of several facial and cranial primitive features that I didn’t expect to see in a single individual“ states Dr. Haile – Selassie. Besides this, they were able to conclude that A. anamensis and A. afarensis coexisted during a period of time of at least 100,000 years. Such claims defy previous assumptions of a linear transition between these two hominins, that is, this finding opposes to the notion of anagenesis in hominins. The piece was found in Godaya Valley, 35 miles (56km) away from Hadar, the region were Lucy’s famous specimen was found. “This is a game changer in understanding human evolution during Pliocene” claims Dr.Haile-Selassie

Among the A. anamensis facial features, there are some shared with its descendant species, while others had more in common with older and more primitive human ancestors, such as Ardipithecus and Sahelanthropus.

Scientist carried away a fossil pollen grains and sediments analysis that shed some light on ancient environmental conditions. Specifically, they indicate that A. anamensis lived near a large lake in a rather dry region. More effort needs to be put in studying this deposits in order to understand the environment of this specimen in relation to climate change and how it affected human evolution.

Source of the new: http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/australopithecus-anamensis-skull-07542.html

Article mentioned: Haile-Selassie et al. (August, 2019). A 3.8 million-year-old hominin crainum from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia. Nature, (573) 214-219