“Human-like fossil find is breakthrough of the year”
On October this year(2009), the 4.4 million year old creature, that may be a human ancestor, was first described in a series of papers in the journal Science. That 4.4 million year old creature was discovered in Ethiopia which is on the south part of Africa, and it is the first fossils of the species. the official name is Ardipithecus ramidus, however, it has now been nicknamed “Ardi”. Ardi is the first fossils of the species, and fossils were unearthed in 1994. When Ardi was discovered, scientists recognized the importance immediately. But the very poor condition of the ancient bones meant that it took researchers 15 years to excavate and analyze them. The most important thing to emerge from that excavation was the partial skeleton of a female creature. It has now been recognized by the journal's editors as the most important scientific accomplishment of this year. Therefore, the discovery of a fossilized skeleton that has become a "central character in the story of human evolution" has been named the science breakthrough of 2009.
Another article says that Ardi is a female who is 120cm tall. Also, Professor Suwa who used to work at Tokyo University in Japan discovered a tooth in 1992, and the existence of Ardipithecus ramidus became clear, and a skelton was found from head to foot afterwards. It was 1994 that a fossil was discovered, but 47 researchers ran more than ten years and analyzed it in detail. The journal Science appreciates the persistent efforts of study.
Their careful examination of its skull, teeth, pelvis, hands and feet revealed that Ardi shared a mixture of "primitive" traits shared with its predecessors, and "derived" features, which it shared with later hominids, or human-like creatures. It shared some of these derived features with humans.
Professor Tim White from the University of California, Berkeley in the US, was one of the lead scientists working on the project.
"This is not an ordinary fossil. It's not a chimp. It's not a human. It shows us what we used to be," he told Science Magazine at the time the research was published.
One of his team's key conclusions was that Ardi walked upright. This was based on the painstaking reassembly of its very badly crushed pelvis, which the scientists said had a shape that would have allowed Ardi to balance on one leg at a time.
There is more specific information on the internet webpage (http://genkinagochan.blog.ocn.ne.jp/doranyanko/). Ardi’s capacity of the brains is more than 300cc such as the regular chimpanzee. Ardi spent long time on a tree, and from that, a way of our far-off ancestral living was evolved. From the leg bone, it can see that Ardi had an ability to catch a branch with fingers, and to move trees. Ardi has a long arm, and it is considered that the long arm was used for to move on from tree to tree. The scientists’ team collected the fossil of the animals and plants which amounted to about 150,000, and the team discovered that Ardi lived in the forest.
I already know that the previous study demonstrates that the bipedalism evolved first, and then, upsizing of the brain advanced later. This time, however, the human who had begun to move a foothold of the life from the on a tree to the ground appeared at last.
