MADRID, 13 (EUROPA PRESS)
Paleoanthropologists have discovered a new species of Australopithecus in Ethiopia that has never been found anywhere else, according to research published in Nature.
The Ledi-Geraru Research Project, led by scientists at Arizona State University (ASU), has revealed the oldest member of the genus Homo and the oldest Oldowan stone tools on the planet.
The research team concluded that the Australopithecus teeth from the Ledi-Geraru site belong to a new species, rather than Australopithecus afarensis (the famous "Lucy"), confirming that there is still no evidence of Lucy's species dating back younger than 2.95 million years.
"This new research shows that the image many of us have of an ape, a Neanderthal, and a modern human is wrong: evolution doesn't work that way," said Kaye Reed, a paleoecologist at ASU. "Here we have two hominid species coexisting. And human evolution isn't linear; it's like a leafy tree; some life forms become extinct."
This new article details thirteen new teeth found at the site, which belong to both the genus Homo and a new species of the genus Australopithecus.
"The new findings of Homo teeth in sediments between 2.6 and 2.8 million years old, reported in this paper, confirm the antiquity of our lineage," said Brian Villmoare, lead author and ASU alumnus.
"We know what the teeth and jaws of the earliest Homo looked like, but that's about it. This emphasizes the crucial importance of finding additional fossils to understand the differences between Australopithecus and Homo, and possibly how they could have overlapped in the fossil record at the same location."
The team can't yet identify the species based solely on teeth; more fossils are needed before that can be achieved.
