Friday, February 19, 2010

Australopithecus anamensis = Australopithecus afarensis?

FOSSILS. I am back (again). One article captured my attention in the last issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology: "New hominid fossils from Woranso-Mille (Central Afar, Ethiopia) and taxonomy of early Australopithecus". Haile-Selassie and colleagues suggest that this new fossil evidence from Woranso-Mille site in Ethiopia will help us to fill the gap between 3.6 and 3.9 mya; and at the end they are questioning that after these new specimens the morphological differences between A. anamensis and A. afarensis do not warrant a species level distinction. Let me bring one of the last comments in their Discussion: " ..... the Woranso-Mille hominids are temporally and morphologically intermediate between the more primitive Au. anamensis from Allia Bay and the slightly derived Au. afarensis sample from Laetoli....... They appear to potentially represent a transitional population within an anagenetically evolving Au. anamensis-Au. afarensis chronospecies"
As always, the species concept in paleoanthropology is bringing another debate...

0 comments:

Post a Comment