El País | The skull remains found in 1997
Nuño Domínguez Country | Wednesday April 1, 2015 | 22:12 hrs
Madrid So far, the film that tells the origins of mankind had a first very clear protagonist. Before there were humans on the face of the earth, there were Australopithecus monkeys with brain chimpanzee that walked upright and barely exceeded the meter in height. Among them stands Lucy, the australopiteca which lived between three and four million years in Ethiopia and is the supposed ancestor of all members of the human species, including Homo sapiens.
The role of Lucy (and trunk of the family tree of humanity) just falter due to the new dating of fossils of Little Foot (Little Pie).
This is another species of monkey upright who lived in South Africa and which, according to its discoverers, has about 3.6 million years, ie, was contemporary with Lucy and candidate to be the first ancestor known to all humans.
Small Pie was a australopiteca, as Lucy, but a large and highest species (measured just under five feet). His strong shoulders, long arms and although bipedal, his feet were still designed to hang from trees. Its scientific name is Australopithecus prometheus.
A bad day, small foot fell into a pit and died in what is now Sterkfontein, 40 kilometers from Johannesburg. His remains were not located until 1997, in the darkness of a cave more than 20 meters deep and buried in rock. Ron Clarke, one of its discoverers, explains that his team took 13 years to separate the bone mineral and to upload them to the surface, even a coffin buried in sediment. Since then it’s been three years cleaning fossils and reconstructing them, although everything was worthwhile: it has proved the most complete skeleton of an Australopithecus. Is almost full, and besides an arm and a hand joint and the small bones of the foot of which gets its nickname (small English foot), highlights its spectacular skull.
The major drawback to accept a small Pie starring in the early stages of human evolution is its controversial antiquity.
The land of the cave has been removed and changed a lot, both geological phenomena such as dynamite of the miners who took rock splinters of bone that helped a century later, Clarke found the skeleton. His team and other specialists have different dating.
The most favorable suggest it could take up to four million years. Other groups give little more than two million years, ie after the appearance of the first humans.
In 2014 a new dating of sediments supposedly the date of his death stating it published a age of at least three million years. Now, Clarke’s team uses the latest dating technique that was available. Cosmogenic
It is based on the type of aluminum and beryllium atoms contained in quartz that encapsulates the fossil. These elements change by bombardment of cosmic rays arriving from space and becomes a kind of clock inside the stone. The findings, published in Nature, materialize an age of 3.67 million years with a margin of error of 160,000 years, a whole mess scientist, as Clarke.
“So far, people believed that the australopithecines oldest known (as Lucy) were the direct ancestors of all that came later, “explains Materia paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). “Now we can prove they were not the only species that lived 3.5 million years ago and the truth is we can not know which one is our direct ancestor” he says.
little human faces
The physical features do not seem to help much. “Lucy is much smaller than small Pie and less like a gorilla, but neither has human traits in her face, it is impossible to say which one is closer to us,” he added.
So, the origin of human before being human forks. It could start with Lucy in Ethiopia makes three to four million years and then lead to the early members of the genus Homo, a choice reinforced by the recent discovery there of the oldest human, 2.8 million years ago.
On the other hand, the new dating in South Africa “Little Foot gets back in the race” and could this Australopithecus who lived in an area recognized by UNESCO as the Cradle of Humankind which would lead to “Homo habilis, our ancestor, “explains Laurent Bruxelles, co-author of the study.
Independent experts recognize the importance of work, but emphasize that the best is yet to come. “This study almost definitely closed the controversy dating,” says Carlos Lorenzo, archaeologist and researcher IPHES Atapuerca. The real highlight will, he says, when Clarke’s team unveil the complete study of the entire skeleton of Little Foot, especially his skull and teeth that contain key features to know how similar it was to humans who emerge later and if you can consider our ancestor.
Clarke hopes to publish the first descriptions of this exceptional specimen next year. “It is possible that our true ancestor than any of the australopithecines we know.”
The Australopithecus
There stole fire
In 1948, the pioneer Raymond Dart classified paleoanthropology a hominid found in Makapansgat, South Africa, as Australopithecus prometheus’. The origin of its scientific name comes from an error.
Dart thought he had burnt bones at the site and performed his Australopithecus dominated the fire. So I put the name of the Greek Titan who stole fire from the gods to give to humans. Actually the bones were blackened by manganese.
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