Asa Issie, Aramis and the origin of Australopithecus

Tim D. White (), Giday WoldeGabriel, Berhane Asfaw, Stan Ambrose, Yonas Beyene, Raymond L. Bernor, Jean-Renaud Boisserie, Brian Currie, Henry Gilbert, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, William K. Hart, Leslea J. Hlusko, F. Clark Howell, Reiko T. Kono, Thomas Lehmann, Antoine Louchart, C. Owen Lovejoy, Paul R. Renne, Haruo Saegusa, Elisabeth S. Vrba, Hank Wesselman and Gen Suwa
Additional contact information
Tim D. White: Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
Giday WoldeGabriel: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Berhane Asfaw: Rift Valley Research Service
Stan Ambrose: University of Illinois
Yonas Beyene: Authority for Research and Conservation of the Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture
Raymond L. Bernor: Howard University
Jean-Renaud Boisserie: Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
Brian Currie: Miami University
Henry Gilbert: Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
Yohannes Haile-Selassie: Cleveland Museum of Natural History
William K. Hart: Miami University
Leslea J. Hlusko: University of California at Berkeley
F. Clark Howell: Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
Reiko T. Kono: National Science Museum
Thomas Lehmann: Transvaal Museum
Antoine Louchart: Université Claude Bernard
C. Owen Lovejoy: Kent State University
Paul R. Renne: Berkeley Geochronology Center
Haruo Saegusa: University of Hyogo
Elisabeth S. Vrba: Yale University
Hank Wesselman: Sierra College
Gen Suwa: University of Tokyo

Nature, 2006, vol. 440, issue 7086, 883-889

Abstract: Abstract The origin of Australopithecus, the genus widely interpreted as ancestral to Homo, is a central problem in human evolutionary studies. Australopithecus species differ markedly from extant African apes and candidate ancestral hominids such as Ardipithecus, Orrorin and Sahelanthropus. The earliest described Australopithecus species is Au. anamensis, the probable chronospecies ancestor of Au. afarensis. Here we describe newly discovered fossils from the Middle Awash study area that extend the known Au. anamensis range into northeastern Ethiopia. The new fossils are from chronometrically controlled stratigraphic sequences and date to about 4.1–4.2 million years ago. They include diagnostic craniodental remains, the largest hominid canine yet recovered, and the earliest Australopithecus femur. These new fossils are sampled from a woodland context. Temporal and anatomical intermediacy between Ar. ramidus and Au. afarensis suggest a relatively rapid shift from Ardipithecus to Australopithecus in this region of Africa, involving either replacement or accelerated phyletic evolution.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04629 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:440:y:2006:i:7086:d:10.1038_nature04629

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature04629

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().