About new fossil skull of man's ancestors?

Question

I was told that there was a news item about this this morning -- i.e. Thursday 9th.August, 2007

Answer 1

Well, it's not a new ancestor.  It just turns out that h. erectus and h. habilis were contemporaries instead of one evolving from the other.  It's pretty cool, but I don't think that it's as big a deal as it's being made out to be.  I don't think the human evolutionary path was ever that clear-cut and well-marked-out.  We were always fuzzy on the details.  This just brought a bit of it into sharper focus.

Answer 2

I have always been a fan of branching-bush evolutionary theory rather than ladder-like.  Evolution thrives on difference.  One group gets isolated or tries things differently or exploits a certain resource and the adaptive ability slowly separates the groups.  As an anthropologist I am fascinated by the findings and agree with the article that it in no way debunks Evolutionary Theory but merely calls for a redefinition of what we know.  Without new information and new ideas our thoughts would become stagnant.  

It is important to remember that, 'The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence' and that when dealing with fossils only a very small percentage of what existed will ever be found.

Answer 3

Go down to Xena_fire and the question, " So evolutionary theory wasn't so correct after all. " She has the link, though not the proper education.

Ya, that is it right below me. Gee, I wish I was that computer literate.

Answer 4

Actually, H. habilis was probably not our ancestor in my opinion.  H. rudolphensis is a better candidate.  I suspect that there were many more than two bipedal homids walking the earth a million years ago.  In addition, I think that H. habilis might in fact be multiple species.  They were origionally lumped together by time because of the biased belief that humans were in one line of evolution.  

There was a quote in the article, "Homo habilis was likely more vegetarian while Homo erectus ate some meat, he said. Like chimps and apes, "they'd just avoid each other, they don't feel comfortable in each other's company," he said"

Like chimps and apes?  A chimp is an ape.  I have to assume it is a typo, but it is annoying when they add things like this with no evidence.  Lions and hyennas don't avoid each other and they both continue to exist.  I advise to take their theories with a grain of salt.

Answer 5

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070808/ap_o...