News Newly found skull may rewrite history of human evolution, say researchers

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A newly discovered fossil skull suggests that an early human species migrated from Africa to Asia and back again before evolving into modern humankind, an international team of researchers said March 20.

The fossil is the strongest evidence yet that the species called homo erectus — a nomadic ancestor of humanity — was a single species ranging across Africa, Europe and Asia.

Many scholars have argued that homo erectus was actually two or more species.

The find appears to simplify the human family tree, but also to renew the debate over the role Asia played in human origins.

"What we now have is evidence that a single human ancestor species was so successful that it was spread from Java to Italy to Ethiopia by 1 million years ago," said W. Henry Gilbert, a U.S. graduate student who discovered the skull in Ethiopia

Homo erectus skulls vary widely. Those differences led some scientists to believe that these early human ancestors divided into separate Asian and African species

Unlike the African fossils, the Asian fossils were thought to have no connection to modern homo sapiens. This newly found skull contradicts that theory, the researchers said.

The new skull is similar enough to some found in Asia to show that even after almost a million years of wandering, these creatures all belonged to the same species.

"The skull has features of both `Asian' and `African' forms," said one researcher. "This clearly shows that features previously considered to separate the Asian and African forms do not hold."

人類の歴史を塗り替える頭骨発見

アフリカのエチオピアで、アフリカ原人とアジア原人の両方の特徴を持つ頭骨の化石が発見された。これは、別種と考えられていたアフリカ原人とアジア原人が、同一種だったことを裏付ける発見で、人類の進化論に新たな説が加わりそうだ。

Shukan ST: March 29, 2002

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