what's new at globe?World’s oldest human-linked skeleton found

World’s oldest human-linked skeleton found:-

Discovery Shakes Up Evolution Theory
The story of humankind is reaching back another million years with the discovery of “Ardi,” a hominid who lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia.

The 110-pound, 4-foot female roamed forests a million years before the famous Lucy, long studied as the earliest skeleton of a human ancestor.

This older skeleton reverses the common wisdom of human evolution, said anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University.
Study dates skeleton found in 1994 back 4.4 million yearsA hominid skeleton found in 1994 and dating back 4.4 million years has cast doubt on long-held theories of evolution.


"Ardi," a 110-pound, 4-foot female found in Ethiopia is a million years older than Lucy, previously believed to be the earliest skeleton of a human ancestor.

A study of Ardi shows she was of a species that could walk upright and spent little time in the trees. This find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved from some common ancestor that existed 6 to 7 million years ago, scientists say, but that each evolved and changed separately along the way.

“This is not that common ancestor, but it’s the closest we have ever been able to come,” Tim White, director of the Human Evolution Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, told the Associated Press.