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."

Comments

Damn... A win for the creationists

[Maritz]

This particular gap has become two gaps.

Re:Damn... A win for the creationists

[jandersen]

Well, to a creationist, the fact that there are no intermediaries between you and your parents is proof that you are not related.

Re:Damn... A win for the creationists

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Well, to a creationist, the fact that there are no intermediaries between you and your parents is proof that you are not related.

To the religious fundamentalists, this is just more proof that Satan and his evil hoardes place false evidence to lure those whose faith is not solid away from Biblical truth.

It is not just Satan who is planting all those evil evidence. Satan is being actively aided and abetted by the Omnipotent who is *not* removing the false evidence as soon as Satan does the planting. It am sure the Omniscient All Knowing God is just testing the faithful to find out how strong their faith is, which He already knows, by definition.

Please give yourself a few minutes to let the brain return from that complex Yoga pose to return to normal.

Re:So what's the new chain?

[Rei]

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.

Human origin

[Buchenskjoll]

So humans come from Afar?

Re:As if

[Sique]

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.