Elmira Alieva — NBC News
In the latest twist in human evolution, scientists have discovered that a mysterious foot found in Ethiopia belonged to a previously unknown ancient relative.
According to a study published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature, the species, which is about 3.4 million years old, was probably similar to Lucy, an ancient human ancestor who lived in the area around the same time.
However, the researchers found that the Burtele foot, named after the place in northeastern Ethiopia where it was discovered in 2009, was undeniably different.
With an opposable big toe similar to a human thumb, Burtelet’s petrified foot suggests its owner was an experienced climber who spent more time in trees than Lucy, according to the study.
For decades, Lucy’s species was considered the ancestor of all later hominids, the closest ancient relative to humans, including A wise manas for chimpanzees.
Scientists were unable to confirm whether the foot belonged to a new species until they were able to examine new fossils, including a jaw with 12 teeth, which were found in the same location.
After identifying them as I’m not saying Australopithecusthey discovered that Burtele’s foot belonged to the same species.
John Rowan, associate professor of human evolution at the University of Cambridge, UK, said their finding was “very reasonable”.
(They discover a new dinosaur with 14 horns on its face, some of which are shaped like huge blades)
“We now have much more compelling evidence that closely related but adaptively distinct species lived at the same time,” Rowan, who was not involved in the study, told NBC News in an email Thursday.
The study also looked at how these species share the same environment. A research team led by Yohannes Haile-Selassie from Arizona State University concluded that the new species spent a significant amount of time in the forest.
Lucy, Fr Australopithecus Afarprobably roamed the land, according to the study, before suggesting that the two species likely had different diets and used their environments differently.
Multiple studies of newly discovered teeth have shown that I’m not saying Australopithecus According to the study, it was more primitive than Lucy and probably ate leaves, fruits and nuts.
“These differences meant that they were unlikely to compete directly for the same resources,” said Ashley LA Wiseman, an associate professor at the Macdonald Institute of Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge in the UK.
(Scientists discovered 70-million-year-old megaraptor dinosaur fossils in Chile)
Underscoring the discovery’s broad impact on our understanding of evolution, Wiseman said in an email Thursday that the findings reminded us “that human evolution was not a straight staircase in which one species became the next.”
Instead, he said, it should be seen as a family tree with several “cousins” living at the same time, each with their own way of surviving. “Did they interact with each other? We will probably never know the answer to that question,” he added.
Rowan also argued that as the number of well-documented human-related species increases, so do our questions about our ancestors.
“Which species were our direct ancestors? What were our close relatives? That’s the tricky part,” he said. “As species diversity increases, so do the number of plausible reconstructions of how human evolution unfolded.”
Wiseman cautioned against definitive species assignments, as they must be based on well-preserved skull parts and fossils belonging to many related individuals. In addition, he also claimed that although the new research confirms the existence I’m not saying Australopithecus“does not exclude all other alternative interpretations.”
