|
|
Article: Walking small: humanlike legs took Homo out of Africa.(This Week)(fossil hominids)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- September 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
The earliest known human ancestors that trekked from Africa into Asia possessed legs, feet, and spines much like ours, even as they sported relatively apelike arms and small brains, according to an analysis of 1.77-million-year-old fossils unearthed in the central Asian nation of Georgia.
A team led by David Lordkipanidze of the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi recovered 33 lower-body bones from at least three adults and one teenager at a site called Dmanisi. The researchers had previously found four skulls and four lower jaws, as well as simple stone tools, in the same sediment (SN: 5/13/00, p. 308). In several cases, skull and lower-body remains come from ...