|
|
Article: Fossil hints link to humans was apelike tool user
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- May 21, 1987
CopyrightCopyright (null) Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
|
An unprecedented fossil find suggests that the earliest known
direct ancestor of humans was a tool user who roamed the plains of
eastern Africa 1.8 million years ago and was shorter and more apelike
than previously believed.
The finding, reported by scientists from Berkeley, Calif., in
today's issue of the British journal Nature, suggests that early man
evolved over a surprisingly brief period of 200,000 years from a
long-armed tree climber into a short-armed, more humanlike forager
and hunter.
The conclusion results from the discovery of limb bones
associated with a skull of Homo habilis, the first proto-human or
hominid to have a significantly larger brain than all of its ...