Scientists have unearthed three 160,000-year-old human skulls in Ethiopia that are the oldest known and best-preserved fossils of modern humans' immediate predecessors.
The nearly complete skulls of an adult male and a child and the partial skull of a second adult appear to represent a crucial stage of human evolution when the facial features of modern humans arose.
Discovered in Ethiopia's fossil-rich Afar region, the skulls have clearly modern features -- a prominent forehead, flattened face and reduced brow -- that contrast with older humans' projecting, heavy-browed skulls.
PHOTO: AP
"They're not quite completely modern, but they're well on their way. They're close enough to call Homo sapiens,'' said Tim White, a University of California, Berkeley paleontologist who was co-leader of the international team that excavated and analyzed the skulls.
Previously, the earliest fossils of Homo sapiens found in Africa had been dated to about 130,000 to 100,000 years, although they were less complete and sometimes poorly dated, White said.
White and his colleagues assigned the new creatures to a subspecies of Homo sapiens they named Homo sapiens idaltu -- idaltu meaning "elder" in the Afar language.
Two other scientists said the skulls are an important find that fill a big gap in the African human fossil record, the period between about 100,000 and 300,000 years ago.
They agreed with White that the skulls' age and appearance strongly support genetic evidence that modern humans arose in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago -- and not at multiple locations in Europe, Africa and Asia as some researchers suggest.
Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution, said the skulls, while still large and thick-boned, are undeniably modern.
Unlike the heavy brows and projecting facial features of earlier humans, in the new skulls those features have retracted dramatically under the braincase and there is a prominent forehead.
Potts said that while White and his colleagues conclude that the fossil skulls are likely those of ancestral subspecies of Homo sapiens, he believes they represent modern Homo sapiens.
Potts said he would not be surprised if additional excavations in Africa push back the origins of modern humans to about 200,000 years -- humans who would have then spread to Europe and Asia.
The skulls were found in a desolate area about 225km northeast of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, near the village of Herto.
Skull fragments from a total of 10 individuals were unearthed, but conspicuously lacking were their jaws and any bones below the neck.
White said two of the skulls appear to have been scraped clean of flesh, suggesting an ancient mortuary practice, or possibly cannibalism.
Scattered across the same area were thousands of various stone tools, including hand axes, along with the butchered bones of hippopotamus and antelope. White said the site, once the lush shoreline of a large lake, was probably a seasonal foraging ground for the humans.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS