- Scientists have discovered a skull buried on the bank of an African river nearly four million years ago has put a new face on the story of human evolution.
- The skull is of an early human ancestor that lived 3.8 million years ago, a species boasting an intriguing mixture of ape-like and human-like characteristics.
- It has been dubbed MRD, which provides insight into a pivotal period for the evolutionary lineage that eventually led to modern humans, belongs to the species Australopithecus anamensis, which first appeared roughly 4.2 million years ago.
- The fossilised cranium, discovered in the Afar region of Ethiopia, is the first to provide a glimpse of the facial features of the oldest known species that is unambiguously part of the human evolutionary tree.
- It is believed to be Australopithecus anamensis, an ancestor of a hominin made famous by a find in 1974, also in Ethiopia — Lucy.
- This species is considered the direct ancestor of Australopithecus afarensis, the species best known from the famous partial skeleton nicknamed ‘Lucy’ unearthed in 1974, about 56 km from the site in the Afar region of Ethiopia where the MRD skull was found in 2016. Lucy dates from about 3.2 million years ago.
- MRD and Lucy together stand as watershed fossils for illuminating early human ancestors.
- Until now, the only Australopithecus anamensis cranial remains were isolated jaw fragments and teeth, making it difficult to fully understand the species. The skull is critical for learning about a species’ diet, brain size and facial appearance.
- Its skull, found about 550 km northeast of Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, measures about 8 inches front to back and 4.5 inches wide. Previous research suggested the species reached about 5 feet tall, but the researchers did not give a height estimate for this individual, apparently an adult male.
