john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

New hominid from Mille, Ethiopia

Sun, 2005-03-06 11:20 -- John Hawks

News story on MSNBC

I link to the MSNBC news story because it comes with a picture. That tibia (which looks a lot like a distal femur...) is the thickness of an index finger. The elements of the skeleton are described as smaller than Lucy's. According to the story, the remains are estimated to be 3.8 million to 4 million years old, and include a tibia, partial femur, ribs, vertebrae, "pelvis," clavicle, and scapula. I put quotes around pelvis because of the context of the story -- it seems pretty clear that if they had any substantial part of a pelvis, Bruce Latimer wouldn't be talking about the tibia and talus being the primary evidence for bipedality.

There's not much to say about it yet, since there is no publication or description. The date is nearest to Kanapoi as a comparative sample, but aside from the tibia there may not be any shared elements between the two. Of course, this assumes there is not a skeleton from Aramis for comparisons....

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.