BEIJING, Sept. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- The remains of a
3-year-old girl who lived 3.3 million years ago were unearthed in Ethiopia
Wednesday. This is the earliest known child discovered so far and could fill a
critical missing link in evolution.
The girl has been named "Selam," which means peace in
Ethiopia's languages. She belongs to the "Australopithecus afarensis" species
and blurs the line between apes and humans.
She has also been nicknamed "little Lucy," after the
famous adult female "Lucy" of the same species discovered just 4 kms away in
1974, a landmark in the search for the origins of humanity.
The fossil, including an entire skull, torso,
shoulder blade and various limbs, was discovered at Dikaka, some 400 kms
northeast of the capital Addis Ababa near the Awash River in the Rift Valley.
"The finding is the most complete hominid skeleton
ever found in the world," Zeresenay Alemseged, head of the Paleoanthropological
Research Team, told a news conference.
The fossil reveals a critical moment in human
evolution that saw our earliest relatives shaking off the legacy of ape
ancestors to take their first tentative steps along a path that ultimately led
to modern humans.
The skeleton's lower half is almost perfectly adapted
to walking upright, while the upper body is more primitive, with gorilla-like
shoulder blades and curved chimpanzee-like fingers suited to clinging and
climbing trees.
The intact skull and nearly full set of teeth show
the large, pointy canines that distinguish apes from early humans have
disappeared, leaving only substantial chewing teeth.
Another interesting feature is the hyoid or tongue
bone, never found before in a species older than Neanderthal man.
The discovery has delighted scientists who say it
will help unravel some of the most pressing questions about how our earliest
ancestors lived.
"We now have for the first time the hard evidence for
a clear picture of what early child human ancestors looked like," said
Alemseged.
Over the last 50 years, Ethiopia has been a hotbed for
archaeological discoveries. In January a hominid skull thought to be between
200-500 thousand years old was found, in a discovery one scientist said could
fill the gap in the search for the origins of the human race. Enditem
(Agencies)
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