Hot on the heels of our Palaeolithic pt 2 blog comes what will be the biggest and oldest news of the week. It comes from Ethiopia where researchers have announced that they have found what they believe to be evidence of the oldest of our ‘human’ ancestors yet found. At 2.8 million years old it is certainly old!
The evidence comes in the shape of part of a lower mandible or jaw-bone which contains five teeth. Expert analysis has revealed that the shape of the bone in relation to the chin for example, makes it a different species to what was considered our earliest ancestor ‘Lucy’ who belongs to a species called Australopithecus Afarenis. It is also different to the earliest known of the Homo genus – Homo habilis – our direct ancestor. This new species has yet to be named. More on the story of the project and some great images can be found here: http://www.livescience.com/50030-oldest-human-fossil-photos.html