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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
general
Asa Issie, Aramis and the origin of Australopithecus
Nature, Volume 440, No. 7086, Year 2006
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Description
The origin of Australopithecus, the genus widely interpreted as ancestral to Homo, is a central problem in human evolutionary studies. Australopithecus species differ markedly from extant African apes and candidate ancestral hominids such as Ardipithecus, Orrorin and Sahelanthropus. The earliest described Australopithecus species is Au. anamensis, the probable chronospecies ancestor of Au. afarensis. Here we describe newly discovered fossils from the Middle Awash study area that extend the known Au. anamensis range into northeastern Ethiopia. The new fossils are from chronometrically controlled stratigraphic sequences and date to about 4.1-4.2 million years ago. They include diagnostic craniodental remains, the largest hominid canine yet recovered, and the earliest Australopithecus femur. These new fossils are sampled from a woodland context. Temporal and anatomical intermediacy between Ar. ramidus and Au. afarensis suggest a relatively rapid shift from Ardipithecus to Australopithecus in this region of Africa, involving either replacement or accelerated phyletic evolution. © 2006 Nature Publishing Group.
Authors & Co-Authors
White, Tim D.
United States, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
WoldeGabriel, Giday
United States, Los Alamos
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Asfaw, Berhane
Ethiopia, Addis Ababa
Rift Valley Research Service Addis Ababa
Ambrose, Stanley H.
United States, Urbana
University of Illinois Urbana-champaign
Beyene, Yonas
Unknown Affiliation
Bernor, Raymond Louis
United States, Washington, D.c.
Howard University
Boisserie, Jean Renaud
United States, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
France, Paris
Museum National D'histoire Naturelle
France, Poitiers
Universite de Poitiers
Currie, Brian
United States, Oxford
Miami University
Gilbert, W. Henry
United States, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
Haile-Selassie, Yohannes
United States, Cleveland
Cleveland Museum of Natural History
Hart, William K.
United States, Oxford
Miami University
Hlusko, Leslea J.
United States, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
Howell, Francis Clark
United States, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
Kono, Reiko T.
Japan, Tokyo
National Museum of Nature and Science
Lehmann, Thomas
South Africa, Pretoria
Transvaal Museum
Louchart, Antoine
France, Villeurbanne
Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1
Lovejoy, C. Owen
United States, Kent
Kent State University
Renne, Paul Randall
United States, Berkeley
Berkeley Geochronology Center
United States, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
Saegusa, Haruo
Japan, Kobe
University of Hyogo
Vrba, Elisabeth S.
United States, New Haven
Yale University
Wesselman, Hank
United States, London
Natural History Museum
Suwa, Gen
Japan, Tokyo
The University of Tokyo
Statistics
Citations: 241
Authors: 22
Affiliations: 18
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1038/nature04629
ISSN:
00280836
e-ISSN:
14764687
Study Locations
Ethiopia