Human Origins

  • Human Origins Blog
  • Human Origins
  • Earliest
  • Australopithecus
  • Homo habilis
  • Homo erectus
  • Homo antecessor
  • Homo heidelbergensis
  • Southwest Asian Homo sapiens Complex
  • Neandertals
  • The "Hobbit"
  • Homo sapiens
  • References and Contact Form
  • New Page
 

Hominids’ African Origins, 50 Years Later

12/13/2010

0 Comments

 
Picture
I enjoyed this article, and agree that there have been an amazing number of Hominid, and Hominin, fossils since the Leakey’s search in Olduvai Gorge fifty odd years ago.
Even since I started studying human origins academically in 1985 have there been a startling number of discoveries. I recall my first human origins course at Knox College, where we had been reading two books, one by Don Johansen, discoverer of “Lucy” and the other by Richard Leakey. One postulated Australopithecus afarensis as the ‘missing link’, and the other postulated Australopithecus africanus as the direct ancestor of our line. I had the great pleasure and privilege of meeting Richard Leakey, who visited the college to give a lecture, and also visited our class.

The interpretations are made as the discoveries are made, and that has always been the case. The really fascinating news is that improvements in extracting ancient DNA have resulted in startling new interpretations, namely the Max Planck Institute’s extraction of Neandertal DNA and comparing it with modern DNA, showing a much closer relationship between our species and the Neandertals.

I think the next fifty years will yield some startling and surprising discoveries.

Comment by James P. Zaworski — December 13, 2010 @ 3:50 pm


http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2009/07/23/hominids-african-origins-50-years-later/comment-page-1/#comment-2843
0 Comments
 





Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I've always been fascinated by human origins, evolution, archaeology and anthropology in general.  This is just a blog to support news stories about Hominids, Hominins, paleoanthropology, and archaeology.

    Archives

    April 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    November 2011
    September 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010

    Categories

    All
    Admixture
    Afterlife
    Amhs
    Anatomically Modern Human
    Anatomically Modern Humans
    Archaeology
    Archaic Homo Sapiens
    Ardipithecus
    Art
    Assemblage
    Australopithecus
    Blog
    Brain
    Cannibalism
    Cognitive Development
    Cro Magnon
    Denisova
    Denisovan
    Denisovans
    Dentition. Omnivory
    Diet
    Dna
    Early Homo Sapiens
    El Sidron
    Fire
    Genetics
    Genome
    Gravettian
    Homo Erectus
    Homo Ergaster
    Homo Floresiensis
    Homo Habilis
    Homo Sapiens
    Human Origins
    Hunting
    Hybridization
    Levant
    Lithic Technology
    Lithics
    Lucy
    Mammoth
    Mesolithic
    Mitochondrial Dna
    Morphology
    Mousterian
    Movie Review
    Mutation
    Nature
    Neandertal
    Neanderthal
    Neolithic
    North American Archaeology
    Nova
    Nurture
    Odontology
    Ontogeny
    Out Of Africa
    Paleoanthropology
    Paleolithic
    Primatology
    Replacement
    Review
    Shoulder
    The Hobbit
    Turkana Boy
    Wordle
    Z Andertal

    free counters

    RSS Feed