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rfmcdonaldEven though I concentrated on cultural anthropology as an udnergraduate, not physical anthropology, the Anthropology majro in me still loves news like this.
The idea that chimpanzees aren't devolved humans, as Lovejoy says, but rather are social and fairly bright primates who simply didn't take to the East African plains, says interesting things to me about intelligence in the animal kingdom: by no means is it necessarily related to our direct lineage.
Scientists in Washington, D.C., and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, have revealed the fossilized partial skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus, nicknamed Ardi, as an early member of the human branch of the primate family tree.
The nearly intact skeleton is the result of 17 years of excavation and research on the fossilized remains, found in 1992 in the Afar region of Ethiopia.
Scientists say the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, humanity's closest living relative, lived at least six million years ago. Ardi isn't that last common ancestor but it's the closest to it that they've seen, say paleontologists.
[. . .]
"In Ardipithecus we have an unspecialized form that hasn't evolved very far in the direction of Australopithecus. So when you go from head to toe, you're seeing a mosaic creature that is neither chimpanzee, nor is it human. It is Ardipithecus," said lead author Tim White of the University of California Berkeley, in a statement.
Researchers concluded that both the human branch and the ape branch of the family tree have evolved significantly from its common ancestor, and chimps can no longer be thought of as a "proxy" for that common ancestor.
"It has been a popular idea to think humans are modified chimpanzees," said Owen Lovejoy, the study's other lead author.
"From studying Ardipithecus ramidus, or Ardi, we learn that we cannot understand or model human evolution from chimps and gorillas," said Lovejoy.
The idea that chimpanzees aren't devolved humans, as Lovejoy says, but rather are social and fairly bright primates who simply didn't take to the East African plains, says interesting things to me about intelligence in the animal kingdom: by no means is it necessarily related to our direct lineage.
