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The journal Nature has published a study on a new discovery by researchers in Ethiopia, which could reconsider Darwin's theory of human "origin"
The researchers discovered a skull from the earliest ancestors of human-like monkeys, aged about 3 million and 800,000 years old.
The study says that the discovery of the new fossil challenges the ideas of the first human evolution of ancestors similar to monkeys.
Perhaps the current idea that the monkey named Lucy would be among the species that contributed to the existence of the first human being on Earth needs to be re-examined.
According to the website "BBC", Professor Johannes Healy-Selassie found the skull in Miro Dura, a place located in the province of Mill, in the state of Afar.
The scientist, who works at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio, said he immediately recognized the importance of fossils.
"I was struck by what I saw and I thought," Do I really see what I see? "" Haile-Selassie told the BBC.
The skull is the best example of a human ancestor resembling a monkey, called Australopithecus two-legged anamnesis, the oldest known type of Australopithecus, possibly dating back to 4.2 million years ago. .
Australopithecus anamnesis is believed to have been the direct ancestor of more recent more advanced species, called Australopithecus avarenesis, which are in turn the direct ancestors of the first human found on Earth, called Homo, a species that includes the human beings present to date .
The skull remains contained in separate parts of the jaw and teeth, making it difficult to fully understand the characteristics of this primitive man.
The skull is essential to recognize the nature of the food that the first humans ate, as well as the size and shape of their brains.
Who is Lucy?
The first structure of Avarinesis was discovered in 1974 and proved to be very exciting. The researchers named it Lucy, the name used by the Beatles in her song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which the team listened to on the dig site.
Known as "the first monkeys to walk," Lucy has attracted people's attention. Professor Fred Spore of the Natural History Museum in London, who wrote a study published in the journal Nature, said that the anamensis "will become another icon of episodes of human evolution".
The reason for its interest is that we can now say that the anamnesis and Avarinesis are contemporary. The latter did not develop directly from the first, as we thought.
This achievement is due to a reinterpretation of the results, as the new fossil contains some of the pieces found in a previously discovered 3.9-million-year-old skull dating from the anamnesis. Scientists can now see that these are actually vestiges of Avarinese, which has pushed the origin of this species into a deeper period of the past.
It now appears that both species co-existed at the same time for at least 100,000 years.
Perhaps what has happened is that a group of anamensis has become isolated from the rest of the population, and has evolved over time into grasslands as they adapt to local conditions. The two groups continued to live together for a while before the remains of the anamensis disappeared.
The importance of this finding is that it indicates the possibility of synchronization with other advanced species of monkeys resembling humans.
"Avarine has long been considered the best candidate for human ancestors, but this is no longer the case now," says Professor Haile Selassie. "We can now look back at all the species that may have existed at the time and examine each of them to see who it is." More likely to be the first human being. "
The emergence of the term "missing link" has become a fool for anthropologists, especially when they have heard it from some journalists, who use it to describe a fossil that is part of it. A monkey and a human part.
Scientists say that many episodes are missing in the chain of human evolution. The anamnesis is the latest in a series of recent discoveries that show that the line of modern human decline has never been smooth.
It was even more complicated and more interesting. It tells the story of the evolution of the "different" ancestors of humans found in different places.
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