Our oldest ancestor
Scientists recreate the face of 3.8million-year-old human set to be ‘an icon of evolution’
HE might have a few lines around the eyes – but for 3.8million years old he looks remarkably well.
For this is the face of our oldest direct ancestor, reconstructed from a rare, nearly- complete skull.
The adult male cranium was discovered at the Woranso-Mille fossil site in central Ethiopia.
It is Australopithecus anamensis, an ancient human even older than ‘Lucy’ – the famous ‘mother of man’ who is a relatively youthful 3.2million years old.
Scientists – who have long debated whether other fossils come from early humans or ancestral apes – appear to agree that this is the oldest undisputed human skull discovered yet.
It allows them to put a ‘face to the name’ of an ancestor we previously only knew from fragments of teeth and jaw. Dr Yohannes Haile-Selassie, whose team discovered the skull, said: ‘It was a dream come true.’ Dr Stephanie Melillo, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and a co-author of two papers on the find in the journal Nature, said: ‘Australopithecus anamensis was already a species that we knew about, but... it is good to be able to put a face to the name.’ Despite its small size, the skull is believed to have belonged to an adult living in dry shrubland. The findings suggest our oldest ancestor lived at the same time as Lucy’s species for at least 100,000 years. Previously it was thought Australopithecus anamensis had died out to be replaced by Lucy’s species. Fred Spoor, of the Natural History of Museum, said the skull is ‘another icon of human evolution’.
and when we got married, with Tim joining Jamie as my other best man, I had John’s childhood companion Straw bod poking out of my jacket pocket. Ten inches of well-worn teddy bear with beady, brown eyes and a badly-knitted scarf — the handiwork of a nine-year-old John — he remains a little part of my twin and has pride of place in the cabinet of curiosities, that jumble of mementoes of my life.
my love of Ange has somehow broken the ‘spell’ that this was an untouchable shrine and we have added new trinkets — a metal blue tit bought in Kew Gardens after a midsummer walk, drawings by the children, a green and yellow sea anemone beach-combed by Paros on that recent trip to the island after which he was named.
Today it feels so much brighter and more positive, a breath of fresh air wafting through and brightening every nook and cranny, and I no longer feel the intense anger of the time, just an immense, unhealing bruise of sadness.
I am also grateful that, unlike so many others, I was not sent to an early grave by my broken heart, although I came close on leaving the hospital on the day of John’s death.
That night I lay on my bed and felt myself falling deeper and deeper into a black hole, the ceiling getting further and further away until I awoke with an almighty intake of breath.
I realised that, 14 hours after John had passed away, I had been willing myself to die too. I was furious with myself and with Dr S and his cronies, but I was also determined that I wouldn’t let John down, determined that I would care for our mother, determined that I would live.