{"id":320307,"date":"2020-01-08T17:19:20","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T20:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=320307"},"modified":"2020-01-08T17:19:20","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T20:19:20","slug":"3-8-million-year-old-skull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/3-8-million-year-old-skull\/","title":{"rendered":"3.8-million-year-old skull"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A nearly complete hominid skull dated at 3.8 million years old and attributed to the species <em>Australopithecus anamensis<\/em> has led to new conclusions about the origins of the genus (<em>Nature<\/em>, August 28). Analysis of the adult skull, discovered in Ethiopia, suggests that the <em>A. anamensis<\/em> and <em>A. afarensis<\/em> lines may have coexisted for at least 100,000 years. If this hypothesis is correct, instead of the former species preceding the latter, which is represented by the famous fossil known as Lucy, the two may have been a single evolutionary lineage. This is the opinion of the study&#8217;s lead author, Yohannes Haile-Selassie of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The primitive cranial morphology of the new fossil is similar to older hominids such as <em>Sahelanthropus<\/em> and <em>Ardipithecus<\/em>. In another article in the same issue of <em>Nature<\/em>, Haile-Selassie&#8217;s group suggests that <em>A. anamensis <\/em>lived in predominantly dry shrubland areas. The species was previously known based on sections of the upper and lower jaw, isolated teeth, parts of the skull, and other fossilized bones estimated at 4.2 to 3.9 million years old found in Kenya and Ethiopia\u2014more recent evidence has also been found, dated 3.5 to 2 million years old. The newly discovered skull reveals the complete face of <em>A. anamensis<\/em> for the first time. &#8220;This skull looks set to become another celebrated icon of human evolution,&#8221; said Fred Spoor of the Natural History Museum in London, UK, in a comment in <em>Nature<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_320312\" style=\"max-width: 1150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/012-017_NOTAS_283-12-1140px.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-320312 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/012-017_NOTAS_283-12-1140px.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1140\" height=\"823\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/012-017_NOTAS_283-12-1140px.jpg 1140w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/012-017_NOTAS_283-12-1140px-250x180.jpg 250w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/012-017_NOTAS_283-12-1140px-700x505.jpg 700w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/012-017_NOTAS_283-12-1140px-120x87.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1140px) 100vw, 1140px\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"media-credits-inline\">Dale Omori \/ Cleveland Museum of Natural History<\/span><\/a> A fossil found in Ethiopia<span class=\"media-credits\">Dale Omori \/ Cleveland Museum of Natural History<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A nearly complete hominid skull dated at 3.8 million years old has led to new conclusions about the origins of the genus ","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":320308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1651],"tags":[202,231,241],"coauthors":[785],"class_list":["post-320307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-notes","tag-archaeology","tag-evolution","tag-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320316,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320307\/revisions\/320316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320307"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=320307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}