SCIENTISTS DISCOVER NEW BRANCH OF HUMAN FAMILT TREE
Tue, 21 May 1996 09:37:11 -0500 / posted May 28, 1996
Source: Associated Press
PARIS - Scientists studying a partial jaw unearthed last year in Africa
said Monday that analyses have shown it belongs to a previously unknown
species of human
ancestor.
The announcement, which shakes up several accepted notions about human
origins, was hailed by other experts as a huge surprise.
"This is the beginning of a new history. From here, anything can
happen," said Michel Brunet, a professor at the University of Poitiers
who discovered the jaw.
Dubbed Australopithecus bahrelghazali, the species lived in Chad some 3
million to 3.5 million years ago. It is the first Australopithecus -
"southern ape" - to be
found as far west on the African continent.
Only eight other species of Australopithecus, found in eastern and
southern Africa, were previously known.
Its location, age and distinctive characteristics may force students of
human origins to re-examine much of what they regarded as truth, Brunet
told reporters.
The jaw indicates that australopithecines, human predecessors that
appeared after the evolutionary split away from the ancestors of modern
apes, covered much
greater territory than had been supposed.
Australopithecines gave rise to the group called Homo, which includes
modern people.
Before the Chad finding, Australopithecines had been known from sites in
South Africa and the Rift Valley in the east African nations of
Ethiopia, Kenya and
Tanzania. The Chad site lies 1,550 miles west of the valley.
The discovery of the new species so far from the valley complicates the
task of paleontologists trying to trace the roots of humanity, since it
had been thought certain
that eastern Africa was the "cradle" of today's humans.
"I was very faithful to this idea. Now I'm not so sure," said Yves
Coppens, chairman of the French Academy of Sciences' Prehistory and
Paleoanthropology
Department. "As far as surprises go, they don't get much bigger than
this."
Brunet, who headed the Franco-Chadian mission that discovered the jaw
and later identified it as belonging to a new species, said he had a
hunch the surprises were
just beginning.
"I'm sure that within the next 30 years we will have found other
previously unknown species," he said.
Brunet said his team had already begun searching some 20 sites in the
same region.
The discovery of the new species also means scientists can no longer be
sure about when and where the evolutionary split between the apes and
humans occurred.
"Abel," as Brunet's team named the jawbone's former owner, has a
confusing set of characteristics that include a combination of the
evolved human trait of molars
with the three-root teeth typical of chimpanzees and other apes, Coppens
said.
"It's an extraordinary casserole of the past. It's disturbing. But it's
also a pleasure to discover yet again the whimsy of nature," he said.
By The Associated Press
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