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That is the beauty of Ardi - good bones. The completeness of Ardi's remains, as well as the more than 150,000 plant and animal fossils collected from surrounding sediments of the same time period, has generated an unprecedented amount of intelligence about one of our earliest potential forebears. The skeleton allows scientists to compare Ardipithecus directly with Lucy's genus, Australopithecus, its probable descendant. Perhaps most important, Ardi provides clues to what the last common ancestor shared by humans and chimps might have looked like before their lineages diverged about 7 million years ago. (See pictures of ancient skeletons...
Ardi is the earliest and best-documented descendant of that common ancestor. But despite being "so close to the split," says White, the surprising thing is that she bears little resemblance to chimpanzees, our closest living primate relatives. The elusive common ancestor's bones have never been found, but scientists, working from the evidence available - especially analyses of Australopithecus and modern African apes - envisioned Great-Great-Grandpa to have looked most nearly like a knuckle-walking, tree-swinging ape. But "[Ardi is] not chimplike," according to White, which means that the last common ancestor probably wasn't either. "This skeleton...
...helped females, and their own offspring, by foraging for and sharing food, for example - a change in behavior that could help explain why bipedality arose. Carrying food is difficult in the woods, after all, if you can't free up your forelimbs by walking erect. (Read "Ida: Humankind's Earliest Ancestor! [Not Really...
Virtually all of the builders, with the exception of NVR Inc., are expected to continue posting losses through 2010 and are not expected to report a significant rebound in earnings and home prices until 2011 or possibly 2012 at the earliest, says George. Also, the federal tax credit, if not extended, will expire on Nov. 30, which could slow the housing recovery further...
...team’s findings, published in the Sept. 11 issue of Science, indicate that the fibers are at least 34,000 years old. The earliest-known fibers before the discovery, found at the Dolni Vestonice site in the Czech Republic, date to 30,000 years...