How the skull of humanity’s oldest known ancestor is changing our understanding of evolution

The recent discovery of a 3.8m-year-old cranium (skull without the lower jaw) is the hottest topic of conversation among palaeoanthropologists right now. But fossils are found all the time, so why is the cranium of this small, old man so important? It turns out the discovery is changing our view of how early hominin species evolved – and how they led to humans. To understand how, let’s start at the beginning.

more…

“humanity’s oldest known ancestor”

Humanity’s oldest known ancestor, in terms of the fossil record, would be a Cephalochordate from around 500 million years ago. The fossil record gets a bit murky before that.

dv said:

“humanity’s oldest known ancestor”

Humanity’s oldest known ancestor, in terms of the fossil record, would be a Cephalochordate from around 500 million years ago. The fossil record gets a bit murky before that.

Lots of missing information to be still found.

Tau.Neutrino said:

How the skull of humanity’s oldest known ancestor is changing our understanding of evolution

The recent discovery of a 3.8m-year-old cranium (skull without the lower jaw) is the hottest topic of conversation among palaeoanthropologists right now. But fossils are found all the time, so why is the cranium of this small, old man so important? It turns out the discovery is changing our view of how early hominin species evolved – and how they led to humans. To understand how, let’s start at the beginning.

more…

From: PermeateFree Date: 29/08/2019 14:51:32
ID: 1428849
Subject: re: Face of oldest human ancestor comes into focus with new fossil skull

PermeateFree said:

A>> new fossil discovery means we’re finally able to look upon the face of our oldest ancestor. Paleontologists have discovered an almost-complete skull of Australopithecus anamensis, which has previously only been known from some jawbones, teeth and bits of leg bones. The new find allowed scientists to realistically recreate the hominin’s face for the first time – and it might just shake up the family tree.<< https://newatlas.com/science/oldest-human-ancestor-skull-face-reconstruction/

Also:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/38-million-year-old-skull-puts-new-face-little-known-human-ancestor-species-180973006/

PermeateFree said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

How the skull of humanity’s oldest known ancestor is changing our understanding of evolution

The recent discovery of a 3.8m-year-old cranium (skull without the lower jaw) is the hottest topic of conversation among palaeoanthropologists right now. But fossils are found all the time, so why is the cranium of this small, old man so important? It turns out the discovery is changing our view of how early hominin species evolved – and how they led to humans. To understand how, let’s start at the beginning.

more…

From: PermeateFree Date: 29/08/2019 14:51:32
ID: 1428849
Subject: re: Face of oldest human ancestor comes into focus with new fossil skull

PermeateFree said:

A>> new fossil discovery means we’re finally able to look upon the face of our oldest ancestor. Paleontologists have discovered an almost-complete skull of Australopithecus anamensis, which has previously only been known from some jawbones, teeth and bits of leg bones. The new find allowed scientists to realistically recreate the hominin’s face for the first time – and it might just shake up the family tree.<< https://newatlas.com/science/oldest-human-ancestor-skull-face-reconstruction/

Also:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/38-million-year-old-skull-puts-new-face-little-known-human-ancestor-species-180973006/

Yep. https://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/topics/11780/

We can hypothesize, with reasonable surety, the existence of Most Recent Common Ancestors of any two groups of existing lifeforms on the basis of genetic comparison, and the technology for making these comparisons has improve a lot over the last 20 years, allowing the timing of individual mutations to be estimated.

But these hypothesized ancestors don’t necessarily related to any known fossils. So our discussion here made me ponder about what actual fossil can reasonably said to be probably an ancestor of humans, or at least part of a clade that was an ancestor of humans. We have fossils back to 3.7 billion years or so but no real way of even guessing whether those lifeforms have any extant descendants.

The major assemblage of macroscopic pre-Cambrian fauna is the Ediacaran fauna (~620 mya to 530 mya). The relationship between these forms and the fauna of the Cambrian remains a matter of dispute. It’s widely accepted now that at least some of the Ediacaran fauna are according-to-Hoyle animals.

It might contain members of Bilataria. Members of the genus Spriggina (~555 mya), for instance, could be ancestors of humans.

Maybe the oldest lifeform known from fossils that is widely accepted as an ancestory of humans would be the genus Saccorhytus (~540 mya). They were about a millimetre across.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38800987

dv said:

The major assemblage of macroscopic pre-Cambrian fauna is the Ediacaran fauna (~620 mya to 530 mya). The relationship between these forms and the fauna of the Cambrian remains a matter of dispute. It’s widely accepted now that at least some of the Ediacaran fauna are according-to-Hoyle animals.

It might contain members of Bilataria. Members of the genus Spriggina (~555 mya), for instance, could be ancestors of humans.

Maybe the oldest lifeform known from fossils that is widely accepted as an ancestory of humans aowould be the genus Saccorhytus (~540 mya). They were about a millimetre across.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38800987

So much subtext…

dv said:

The major assemblage of macroscopic pre-Cambrian fauna is the Ediacaran fauna (~620 mya to 530 mya). The relationship between these forms and the fauna of the Cambrian remains a matter of dispute. It’s widely accepted now that at least some of the Ediacaran fauna are according-to-Hoyle animals.

It might contain members of Bilataria. Members of the genus Spriggina (~555 mya), for instance, could be ancestors of humans.

Maybe the oldest lifeform known from fossils that is widely accepted as an ancestory of humans would be the genus Saccorhytus (~540 mya). They were about a millimetre across.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38800987

Looks like The Scream :)

dv said:

The major assemblage of macroscopic pre-Cambrian fauna is the Ediacaran fauna (~620 mya to 530 mya). The relationship between these forms and the fauna of the Cambrian remains a matter of dispute. It’s widely accepted now that at least some of the Ediacaran fauna are according-to-Hoyle animals.

It might contain members of Bilataria. Members of the genus Spriggina (~555 mya), for instance, could be ancestors of humans.

Maybe the oldest lifeform known from fossils that is widely accepted as an ancestory of humans would be the genus Saccorhytus (~540 mya). They were about a millimetre across.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38800987

I can see a face.