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Oldest Human Fossil Fills In 2.8-Million-Year-Old Gap In Evolution
GeekyKhan writes Archaeologists have unearthed a human jawbone—with teeth-- that is believed to be the oldest remains ever found from early humans. It belonged to the earliest specimen of Homo and dates back 2.8 million years. From NPR: "Although it's risky to say you've got the first or oldest of anything, Brian Villmoare, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is sure he and his team have the earliest specimen of Homo, the human genus. 'Oh, yeah, it definitely is,' he says. 'We were looking for it — and by miraculous chance we happened to find it.' Villmoare and an international team from the U.S. and Ethiopia found a lower jaw with five teeth in a region of Ethiopia called Afar. They were working a hill that was full of fossils. 'I was on the other side of the hill,' he recalls, 'and they said, 'Brian! Brian! Come over here.' The partial jawbone — just the left side – was lying on the ground, having eroded out of the hill. Several dating methods confirmed its age as roughly 400,000 years older than the previous record for a human-related fossil."
This particular gap has become two gaps.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
So far they're calling this an early H. habilis. That may change with further study or it may get a subspecies designator, but for now at least, it's H. habilis.
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
So humans come from Afar?
-- Make America hate again!
It is not claimed to be a new species, but the earlies known remains from a wellknown genus: Homo. It probably is from a very early Homo habilis.
Complete line isn't good enough: I'll need two fossils and the sex tape before I agree that a gap in ancestry has been filled.
Scientists believe the find is of a woman. When asked how they knew that, a spokesperson said "well, it was open".
True. At this point, I say 'Welcome aboard!' to any of them who decide that maybe trying science would be cool after all; but it's not even worth the effort to try to convert through additional evidence.
I just wish that there were more who were willing to be honest about it: "I'm a 6-day young earth creationist because I'm interested in faith, not empiricism." isn't my cup of tea; but I'm not interested in fighting with you about it. "No, no, empirical evidence actually proves creationism and a young earth for reasons wholly aside from my interest in it doing so!!!" effectively assures arbitrary amounts of bullshit, intellectual dishonesty, and atrociously bad science standards. Not Good.
every time "missing gap" is used to discuss/describe evolution. We will never find all relevant fossils. Most intermediate iterations were never fossilized in the first place. The "fossil record" can never be complete. All we can do with the infinitesimally small percentage of fossils we do discover is use them to confirm, or refute, the theory of evolution as it currently exists, and, perhaps, revise the theory as required to account for new discoveries and observations. Science!
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
On the other hand, humans and dinosaurs cohabit right now. I'm looking at a Cyanocitta cristata (bluejay) out my back window right now.
Yes, bluejays are dinosaurs, at least since they moved Aves into Dinosauria.
Which makes the fundies right for the wrong reasons. It would drive them even more crazy if you pointed out that birds evolved from dinosaurs, eh?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You do know the difference between excavation and an experiment, right.....
Archeology is more like looking for the lost TV remote... "We were looking for it — and by miraculous chance we happened to find it." after flipping the couch over and shaking it for the fifth time. These aren't result you make happen by not doing it right.
and the sex tape
It's on a wall of the cave on the other side of the hill.
God created the Universe so I could make a living selling Intelligent Design textbooks. He also screwed it up quite a bit so I could follow with a line of Moronic Design texts. I am blessed.