Word: ardipithecus
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Because the fossils were too distinctive to be included in Lucy's extended Australopithecus family, the researchers called the new species Ardipithecus ramidus (ardi means ground or floor in the local Afar language, and ramid means root). White and his colleagues have since found other ramidus fossils at their site but are giving out precious few details until they complete their methodical analysis of the bones. Says ramidus co-discoverer Berhane Asfaw of the Rift Valley Research Service in Addis Ababa: "It will be worth the wait...
...skeleton does include many bones that will help White's team answer the much more important question of how Ardipithecus got around. Paleoanthropologists believe that bipedalism was the first significant modification separating our ancestors from the great apes. By studying the bones and fossil footprints of A. afarensis (Lucy and her line) as well as those of half a dozen other australopithecine species, scientists already knew that our ancestors walked upright long before they acquired other human traits--and that bipedalism gave them a huge edge...
...ancestor or a close relative of that ancestor. Whichever ramidus turns out to be, it's clear that paleontologists are closing in on the split between apes and humans. "We're in the ballpark. Five or 10 years ago, we couldn't even have conceived of this," asserts White. "Ardipithecus is the closest thing we currently have to the common ancestor of African apes and humans, but its derived characteristics, particularly its teeth, suggest that it postdates that ancestor...
...Ardipithecus ramidus...