Earliest human ancestor discovered

[bobbyw24]

Guest post by Jamie Shreeve, National Geographic Magazine Science Editor

The big news in the journal Science tomorrow is the discovery of the oldest human skeleton -- a small-brained, 110-pound female of the species Ardipithecus ramidus, nicknamed "Ardi." She lived in what is now Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago, which makes her over a million years older than the famous "Lucy" fossil, found in the same region thirty-five years ago.

Buried among the slew of papers about the new find is one about the creature's sex life. It makes fascinating reading, especially if you like learning why human females don't know when they are ovulating, and men lack the clacker-sized testicles and bristly penises sported by chimpanzees.

One of the defining attributes of Lucy and all other hominids--members of our evolutionary lineage, including ourselves--is that they walk upright on two legs. While Ardi also walked on two legs on the ground, the species also clambered about on four legs in the trees. Ardi thus offers a fascinating glimpse of an ape caught in the act of becoming human.


See photos of Ardi from National Geographic.

The problem is it is doing it in the wrong place at the wrong time--at least according to conventional wisdom, which says our kind first stood up on two legs when they moved out of the forest and onto open savanna grasslands. At the time Ardi lived, her environment was a woodland, much cooler and wetter than the desert there today.



So why did her species become bipedal while it was still living partly in the trees, especially since walking on two legs is a much less efficient way of getting about?

According to Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University, it all comes down to food, and sex.

Story continues below


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/1..._n_306033.html

[Annihilia]

Cool, but I fail to see the relevance to politics?

[bobbyw24]

Din know where else to post.

[ClayTrainor]

Very interesting stuff. Here is some more information and and interactive map on the fossils and the discovery.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/hu...human-ancestor

Din know where else to post.

I'm guessing it'll be moved to off topic

[jkr]

doesnt even look like me...

[fisharmor]

Proof that the internet has ruined me... I can't help but wonder what penis bristles look like.

[Dr.3D]

Wow, I didn't know ancestry.com went back that far.

[dannno]

Proof that the internet has ruined me... I can't help but wonder what penis bristles look like.

Don't worry, it makes them prematurely ejaculate. Wouldn't want that.

I wonder if my testicles are the size of clackers?


Of course, there are over 13 definitions of "clacker" in the urban dictionary...

Clacker

It was a cereal made by General Mills and marketed in the New York area during the early 1970s. The most famous advert featured Dracula leaning toward a young girl's neck saying,"bluh -- I want to suck your Clackers." A google image search should bring up a picture of the box.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=clacker



The HuffPost article talked a lot more about the sex stuff if you click on the link..


Apparently the reason women give no signs of ovulating is to prevent cuckholding (taking the food from the 'lesser' male and then going alpha for the good sex). More intelligent males who had smaller canines would get females to mate with them by giving them food.. but when the women ovulated they would still go after the alpha male. Suddenly there was some evolution where the women didn't know when they were ovulating (and neither did the males), and so this lessened the practice of cuckholding, which many women still practice today (not that men are perfect in this respect)

[constituent]

not possible. the earth is only 4000 years old, everyone knows that.

[Dr.3D]

not possible. the earth is only 4000 years old, everyone knows that.

And all along I thought the number was 6000. Go figure... must be a lot of differing opinions on this subject.

[constituent]

And all along I thought the number was 6000. Go figure... must be a lot of differing opinions on this subject.

the last 2000 don't count.

[Dr.3D]

the last 2000 don't count.

Yeah, evolution stopped 2000 years ago. LOL

[constituent]

Yeah, evolution stopped 2000 years ago. LOL

I think of it more like 2000 years ago the devolution began. you know, the whole "end is the beginning" thing.

[adara7537]

Lol-who wrote this article? It sounds like I would have written it-

"Among females, the winners are those who flaunt their fertility with swollen genitals or some other prominent display of ovulation, so those big alpha dudes will take notice and give them a tumble, providing a baby with his big alpha genes. "

Alpha dudes?? Lol..big Alpha genes?? Lol. Sounds very scientific lol.

[Nirvikalpa]

Some women experience pain when they ovulate, and basal temperature also goes up... so, the thought that woman do not know when they ovulate isn't necessarily true for all. I definitely know my fertile period, any woman with half the brain-size of Ardi should be able to figure it out.

Secondly, this is not news at all. Apes have been known for a while to take bribes for sex, especially in bonobo chimps - where often a female would mate with the alpha of the group once, then quitely slip away and mate more times with a lower-class male. Chimpanzee males have also been recorded to taunt babies, and then while the female's were watching, soothe the baby, so it appears to the female the male would be a good father.

While testicle size decreased, penis size increased. Human males have one of the biggest sized penis in the animal world, based on body ratio (beat by a blue-billed duck, and barnacle, etc, etc).

Still, science has not discovered why human males and females' bodies developed so face-to-face sex could occur (or the 'missing link' to it?) and would be optimally prime to concieve. Now, that would be interesting to find out.

[bobbyw24]

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, Ap Science Writer – Thu May 27, 2:38 pm ET

NEW YORK – Last fall, a fossil skeleton named "Ardi" shook up the field of human evolution. Now, some scientists are raising doubts about what exactly the creature from Ethiopia was and what kind of landscape it inhabited.

New critiques question whether Ardi really belongs on the human branch of the evolutionary tree, and whether it really lived in woodlands. That second question has implications for theories about what kind of environment spurred early human evolution.

The new work is being published by the journal Science, which last year declared the original presentation of the 4.4 million-year-old fossil to be the magazine's breakthrough of the year.

Ardi, short for Ardipithecus ramidus, is a million years older than the famous "Lucy" fossil. Last October, it was hailed as a window on early human evolution.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100527/...human_ancestor

[Theocrat]

Now, how can evolutionists tell that that ape looked like this just from examining some bones in the dirt:



Don't tell me evolution is not based on faith. It reminds me of this cartoon:

[Old Ducker]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=clacker

1. clacker
Australian slang for "anus"

2. clacker
Ass / anus.

3. clacker
It was a cereal made by General Mills and marketed in the New York area during the early 1970s. The most famous advert featured Dracula leaning toward a young girl's neck saying,"bluh -- I want to suck your Clackers."


I doubt this cereal would have been much of a hit in Australia.

[Brian4Liberty]

Apparently the reason women give no signs of ovulating is to prevent cuckholding (taking the food from the 'lesser' male and then going alpha for the good sex). More intelligent males who had smaller canines would get females to mate with them by giving them food.. but when the women ovulated they would still go after the alpha male. Suddenly there was some evolution where the women didn't know when they were ovulating (and neither did the males), and so this lessened the practice of cuckholding, which many women still practice today (not that men are perfect in this respect)

Wasn't there some study years ago that said that 20-30 percent of humans really didn't come from the father that they thought? Genetic testing could come up with interesting results...

[MelissaWV]

Now, how can evolutionists tell that that ape looked like this just from examining some bones in the dirt:
...
[/IMG]

There are things you can logically deduce, even if they end up being a part of slightly circular reasoning.

If the bones you found are mammalian in nature, for instance, you know that the animal likely had certain attributes. There may be some hair in the surrounding soil that has the same genetic markers, giving you ideas of coloration and length of hair. Even with people, you can make deductions about height and weight based upon just "a few bones in the dirt."

Of course, to go from having a picture of the creature you've dug up... to a "definite" analysis of its habits and its fit in the family tree is often a leap of faith, and history has proven that the overzealous often make mistakes. The headline "Earliest Human Ancestor Discovered" has referred to numerous finds over the years.