Hominid Missing Link (Ethiopia, 4.1-4.2 million years ago)

Paleoanthropologist Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues have unearthed fossils representing the oldest species of Australopithecus, Au. anamensis, in northeastern Ethiopia's Middle Awash valley. The 4.1-million- to 4.2-million-year-old remains--including jaw fragments, teeth and a femur--extend the range of this hominid, which was previously known only from two sites in Kenya. And in terms of age and anatomy, they are intermediate between two other hominids found in the Middle Awash: the older Ardipithecus ramidus and the younger Au. afarensis (Lucy's species).With the new anamensis fossils, White and his collaborators now have 246 hominid specimens spanning the last six million years--"the longest, most continuous record of human evolution anywhere on earth," according to their press release. Exactly which species of Ardipithecus gave rise to anamensis is still uncertain, however. Although Ar. ramidus is a strong candidate at 4.4 million years old, there could another, more closely related species, awaiting discovery.The Nature paper detailing the discovery can be accessed from here.

The remains of the hominid that had a small brain, big teeth and walked on two legs, fits into the one million-year gap between the earlier Ardipithecus and Australopithecus afarensis which includes the famous fossil skeleton known as Lucy, which lived between 3.6 and 3.3 million years ago and was found in 1974.White said the large teeth suggest the hominid was able to eat fibrous foods and roots, compared to earlier species of Ardipithecus that had smaller teeth which restricted their diet.Along with the hominid fossils, the scientists discovered hundreds of remains of pigs, birds, rodents and monkeys as well as hyenas and big cats which gave them an idea of the habitat in which they existed."Here, in a single Ethiopian valley, we have nearly a mile-thick stack of superimposed sediments and twelve horizons yielding hominid fossils. These discoveries confirm the Middle Awash study area as the world's best window on human evolution," White added.

Humanity is widely believed to have descended from the genus Australopithecus, but the beginnings of that genus are shrouded in mystery. Newly discovered fossils from a previously unsampled time slice in the Middle Awash study area of Ethiopia add important information on the subject. They represent the earliest known member of the genus, Australopithecus anamensis, the first to be found outside the Turkana basin in Kenya. The finds are from a woodland context and show how Australopithecus may have evolved from the more primitive Ardipithecus, and may have been ancestral to Australopithecus afarensis, popularly known as 'Lucy'.

With the new anamensis fossils, White and his collaborators now have 246 hominid specimens spanning the last six million years--"the longest, most continuous record of human evolution anywhere on earth," according to their press release.

link writes:How Rare Are Human Fossils?Human fossils are not as rare as the evolutionary establishment suggests. According to Marvin Lubenow, the number of human fossils is much greater than is universally assumed. Referring to the three-volume Catalogue of Fossil Hominids, he gives the following conservative tally (he could have used maximum values given in the catalogue):” 1390 fossil individuals are from Africa (through 1976)” 1516 are from Europe (to 1970)” 1092 are from the Americas, Asia, and Australasia (to 1974)That is 3,998 individuals. Donald Johanson discovered Lucy in 1974. [Lubenow, pp. 28-29] These figures include about 200 Neandertal individuals and 100 Homo erectus individuals. Lubenow just informed readers of the Creation Research Society Quarterly that recent discoveries increased these totals to well over 300 Neandertal, 220 Homo erectus, and 80 archaic Homo sapiens. [Lubenow, CRSQ 1994] Since that time, anthropologists have found many more fossils, and the actual number is much larger now. Tim White's team at Aramis in Ethiopia discovered seventeen new hominid fossils-Australopithecus ramidus-supposedly a million years older than Lucy. [White] The detailed report in Nature magazine describes the seventeen new specimens (all but two are teeth), and gives the year they were collected. Bernard Wood remarking on these fossils says that the teeth of A. ramidus are more chimpanzee-like than those of A. afarensis. [Wood] Is it possible that all Australopithecines have chimp-like teeth and could fit well within the variable limits of the chimp? They may not be chimps, but they are apes and not hominids. The duck and the duckbilled platypus have some similar features, including egg laying, but no one suggests one evolved from the other. We have many things in common with all mammals, but they are not considered hominids. Why should one or two human-like features among apes be cause for considering extinct apes our ancestors? No one has ever observed or demonstrated evolution outside the limits of variation within the gene pool of each species. Why do otherwise intelligent men take these blind leaps of faith into the unverifiable, unrepeatable past, proclaim their assumptions to be facts, and foist them on us? In his book, Duane Gish remarked that the range variation in the teeth of living chimpanzee populations is greater than the differences between the teeth of two fossil species of apes, Dryopithecus and Ramapithecus. [Gish, p. 141] Evolutionists used to think Ramapithecus was our ancestor but then decided it was an orangutan. [Gish, p. 141]

Human fossils are not as rare as the evolutionary establishment suggests. ... Referring to the three-volume Catalogue of Fossil Hominids, ...

The detailed report in Nature magazine describes the seventeen new specimens (all but two are teeth), and gives the year they were collected. Bernard Wood remarking on these fossils says that the teeth of A. ramidus are more chimpanzee-like than those of A. afarensis. [Wood] Is it possible that all Australopithecines have chimp-like teeth and could fit well within the variable limits of the chimp? They may not be chimps, but they are apes and not hominids.

The duck and the duckbilled platypus have some similar features, including egg laying, but no one suggests one evolved from the other.

Why should one or two human-like features among apes be cause for considering extinct apes our ancestors?

No one has ever observed or demonstrated evolution outside the limits of variation within the gene pool of each species.