Scientists discover 3.2 million-yr-old Hominid Special

Cleveland - Meet Lucy's great-grandfather Kadanuumuu, who was found in Ethiopia recently. Scientists say the early hominid skeleton confirms human-like walking is more ancient then we had previously known. Have we found another piece of the missing link?

Scientists from The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Kent State University, Case Western Reserve University, Addis Ababa University and Berkeley Geochronology Center were part of an international team that discovered and analyzed a 3.6 million-year-old partial skeleton found in Ethiopia. The early hominid is 400,000 years older than the famous "Lucy" skeleton. Research on this new specimen indicates that advanced human-like, upright walking occurred much earlier than previously thought. The discovery and results from this initial analysis will be published this week in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The partial skeleton belongs to Lucy's hominid species, Australopithecus afarensis. It was found in the Woranso-Mille area of Ethiopia's Afar region. Excavation has continued over a five year period since the discovery of the first fragment of the lower arm bone in 2005. They have recovered the most complete clavicle and one of the most complete shoulder blades ever found in the human fossil record according to recently released information. Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray on the 24th of November, 1974, at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. They had taken a Land Rover out that day to map in another locality. After a long, hot morning of mapping and surveying for fossils, they decided to head back to the vehicle. Johanson suggested taking an alternate route back through a nearby gully. Within moments, he spotted a right proximal ulna (forearm bone) and quickly identified it as a hominid. Shortly thereafter, he saw an occipital (skull) bone, then a femur, some ribs, a pelvis, and the lower jaw. Two weeks later, after many hours of excavation, screening, and sorting, several hundred fragments of bone had been recovered, representing 40 percent of a single hominid skeleton. These aren't the only known hominid that have been discovered by scientists. In April the government of South Africa announced a hominid was found, this was reported by a Digital Journal writer. The species, which looks like the earlier, ape-like human ancestors, is to be called Australopithecus sediba after the Sotho word for ”natural spring.”

This most recent specimen from Ethiopia is known as "Kadanuumuu" (kah-dah-nuu-muu) meaning "big man" in the Afar language and reflects its large size. The male hominid stood between 5 to 5 ½ feet tall, while "Lucy" stood at about 3 ½ feet.

"This individual was fully bipedal and had the ability to walk almost like modern humans," said Haile-Selassie. "As a result of this discovery, we can now confidently say that 'Lucy' and her relatives were almost as proficient as we are walking on two legs, and that the elongation of our legs came earlier in our evolution than previously thought."

Kadanuumuu scientist and Co-author Dr. C. Owen Lovejoy, a Kent State University professor of anthropology, explained, "The new specimen tells us much more about the pelvis, thorax, and limb proportions than 'Lucy' was able to tell researchers." Marie Graf, of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, said today that the skeleton is still located in Ethiopa where it was found in 2005. It is the property of the government of Ethiopia and while Cleveland has a cast of the skeleton she is not sure if or when the new hominid Kadanuumuu will be available for public view. When asked if the cast would be put on display in the near future, Graf said she highly doubted it."It takes years to properly create an exhibit based on the cast and research is ongoing. Until it has been completed the cast will remain out of view and Kadanuumuu will remain in Ethiopia where he was found." Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Curator and Head of physical anthropology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, is leaving tomorrow to return to Ethiopia to continue his research on the hominid. Graf said "He spends half of the year in Ethiopia and half of the year in the United States working at the museum." Digital Journal spoke with Graf about the controversy that began when the skeleton of Lucy was scheduled to tour a half-dozen cities in the United States. Graf added the Lucy had only been displayed twice for the people of Ethiopia to see her fossilized remains before being shipped to the US. Many prominent museums refused to participate in the Lucy tour — most notably the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington reported NPR. "If Lucy (or any hominid) is removed from a box and then put on display, and put back in a box and then put on display again, as sure as night follows day, it will be damaged," said Bernard Wood, a professor of human origins at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "It's not something that might happen. It's something that most certainly will happen." But Joel Bartsch, the president of the Houston Museum of Natural Science where Lucy was first displayed in the US disagreed with the accusation that the tour could damage Lucy. "When people say Lucy is too fragile, that's really a specious argument," Bartsch says. The fossil was examined by a group of curators who pronounced her hardy and robust, he says. "Is she rare? Is she unique? Is she important to all mankind? Absolutely. But she's not too fragile to travel." Not everyone loved Lucy and many didn't want the fragile skeleton of Lucy to be shipped to the US and transported across the country. The Discovery Times Square Exposition featured the 3.2 million-year-old fossil collection in New York City. The exhibit, “Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia,” ignited racist fears about a common African ancestor than genuine interest on the subject of human species. “People are afraid,” a New York gallery assistant said. “People want to believe Lucy is a hoax, since they’d rather not believe she’s really the missing link.” Anthropologists have long debated whether the short-stature female Lucy walked upright or not. She had represented the only known skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis, and would have stood at a height of 3.5 feet (about a meter) some 3.2 million years ago. But this second partial skeleton found has both the shoulders and long legs that compare well to modern humans, according to Yohannes Haile-Selassie. "It's only the second partial skeleton of A. afarensis to be recovered; it's 400,000 years older than Lucy and it's male," Haile-Selassie said. "But just as important, the fossil remains provide conclusive proof that A. afarensis could walk upright freely without the use of its hands."