Anthro 101 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Anthro 101 - Essay Example So little is known about Sahelanthropus and Ardipithecus that it is challenging to place it conclusively on the tree. Sahelanthropus was discovered by Ahounta Djimdoumalbaye in 2001 in Chad, in the southern Sahara desert. Sahelanthropus has small brain size, brow ridges and small canine teeth, which are characteristic of later hominids. Ardipithecus discovered by a team led by Tim White, Berhane Asfaw and Gen Suwa in the years 1992 and 1993 in Ethiopia. Ardipithecus is a spectacularly complete fossil with about 120 cm (311") tall and weighs about 50 kg (110 lbs). In August 1995, Meave Leakey, a zoologist at the National Museums of Kenya and her colleagues reported the discovery of hominids from the Lake Turkana region in northern Kenya. These finds, predominantly from the site of` Kanapoi, range in age from 3.9 to 4.2 million years and consist mostly of, teeth and jaws, They show strong similarities with A. afarensis but the Kanapoi hominids are characterized by a series of anatomical features that distinguish them as a new species. A. anamensis. Although characters such as tooth formation and the propping of the frontal part of the jaw are dissimilar in these two species, the more primeval character state in Australopithecus anamensis makes it a good ancestor to Australopithecus afarensis. Australopithecus afarensis was discovered by Donald Johanson in 1973 at Hadar in Ethiopia. It was an adult female of about 25 years. Her pelvis, femur (the upper leg bone) and tibia show her to have been bipedal. She was about 107 cm (36") tall (small for her species) and weighed about 28 kg (62 lbs) From the figure above, Australopithecus anamensis is judged to be a sole ancestor to Paranthropus aethiopicus and robustus, and because they both displays a host of features derived in the robust direction, they are not viewed as an