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- Toothy Tree-Swinger May Be Earliest Human
Posted by : Unknown
10 dic 2011
The 3-foot tall Homo gautengensis had large teeth for chomping plants and spent a lot of time in trees, but likely had no language skills.
- A newly-found human, Homo gautengensis, is declared the world's earliest recognized species of human.
- This new early Homo species spent much of its time in trees and had big teeth for eating plants.
- The discovery shakes up human evolutionary history, putting emphasis on Ethiopia as the cradle of humanity.
The new human, described in a paper accepted for publication in HOMO-Journal of Comparative Human Biology, emerged over 2 million years ago and died out approximately 600,000 years ago. The authors believe it arose earlier than Homo habilis, aka "Handy Man."
Darren Curnoe, who led the project, told Discovery News that Homo gautengensis was "small-brained" and "large-toothed."
Curnoe, an anthropologist at the University of New South Wales School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, said that it was "probably an ecological specialist, consuming more vegetable matter than Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, and probably even Homo habilis. It seems to have produced and used stone tools and may even have made fire," since there is evidence for burnt animal bones associated with this human's remains.
Identification of the new human species was based on partial skulls, several jaws, teeth and other bones found at various times at South Africa's Sterkfontein Caves, near Johannesburg.