Earliest Human Remains Found In Ethiopia Abridged Story From a news story by 4/21/99
Hamburger lovers alert! Scientists think they have discovered the remains of our earliest meat-eating, human ancestors. Where and what did these scientists discover? The site of the discovery was in Ethiopia, a country in eastern Africa. An Ethiopian student found pieces of a skull while he was working on a project with 40 scientists. Scientists from 13 countries met there to study fossils of possibly the first meat-eating African ancestor of humans. One scientist from U.C. Berkley, Tim White, says the creature could eat both meat and bone marrow. Previously creatures did not use tools to cut their meat so their diet was more limited. According to White, the addition of meat to the diet, did not turn the creatures into lions, but rather it enabled them to kill larger animals for food. The addition of meat and fat to the creature's diet had many positive effects. Meat and fat helped the thinking powers of the brain and broadened the diet. The improved diet helped creatures survive better and longer and begin development toward modern humans. Another UC Berkley scientist, Desmond Clark has an interesting theory. He claims the creatures wanted the fat and protein found in the bone marrow. In order to get to the marrow, the bones had to be smashed. Tool marks have been found on a bone near the skull. The marks were on the mandible, or jaw bone, and happened when meat was cut from the bone. This is the earliest evidence scholars have found that man used tools to eat. Tim White believes that sharp stones were used to cut into the skin and tissue for eating. Hammer stones were the tools used to break bones to extract marrow and fat.. How old are these prehistoric fossils? Geologists used lasers to heat volcanic crystals from the site to determine age. Paul Renne with the UC Berkeley Geochronology says that they can be fairly close in giving the age of the fossils. A precise estimate is 2.496 million years, plus or minus 8,000 years. Whatever the outcome, the skull pieces will remain in Ethiopia. The pieces have a name, Garhi, which means "pleasant surprise" in the Ethiopian language. Garhi is important to this nation where he is considered a national treasure.
Additional notes: Further discussion and research! Both Paul Renne and Tim White had their findings published in Science Magazine. The web site is http://www.sciencemag.org/ and there is an access fee. When questioned about the research, Paul Reene said, "There's always been a debate about when hominids began to eat meat, and this shows conclusively that this goes back at least 2.5 million years." At Gona, a nearby site, there is evidence of the use of tools as far back as 2.6 million years. Tim White stated, "This was a revolutionary advance over all other earlier hominids who were bipedal but lacked the technology to help them" [in their search for food.] • New Species Of Human Ancestor (American Association for the Advancement of Science) • International team announces discovery of new hominid species in Ethiopia (UC Berkeley Media Advisory) includes an articld and n online video with background footage and an interview with Tim White.
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