August 29, 2019

An almost complete skull of Australopithecus anamensis offers new clues to the evolution of hominins

Two articles published in the journal “Nature” report different aspects of a research on a fossil skull of Australopithecus anamensis, the oldest species of its genus and considered the ancestor of Australopithecus afarensis, the species to which the individual nicknamed Lucy belongs. Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Stephanie Melillo and several colleagues in the two teams studied an almost complete fossil skull, which makes it by far the best preserved one among the ones attributed to that species. It offers new information on the history of australopithecines and therefore of the evolution of hominins which led to that of human beings.