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Determining which species of australopithecine (if any) is ancestral to the genus Homo is a question that is a top priority for many paleoanthropologists, but one that will likely elude any conclusive answers for years to come. Nearly every possible species has been suggested as a likely candidate, but none are overwhelmingly convincing.
Australopithecus fossils become more widely dispersed throughout eastern and southern Africa (the Chadian A. bahrelghazali indicates that the genus was much more widespread than the fossil record suggests), before eventually becoming pseudo-extinct 1.9 million years ago (or 1.2 to 0.6 million years ago if Paranthropus is included).
Gracile australopithecines (Australopithecus afarensis) emerged in the same region, around 4 million years ago. The earliest known retouched tools were found in Lomekwi , Kenya, and date back to 3.3 Ma, in the late Pliocene .
H. habilis is intermediate between Australopithecus afarensis and H. erectus, and there have been suggestions to re-classify it within genus Australopithecus, as Australopithecus habilis. LD 350-1 is now considered the earliest known specimen of the genus Homo, dating to 2.75–2.8 Ma, found in the Ledi-Geraru site in the Afar Region of Ethiopia.
The skull KNM-ER 1470 (now H. rudolfensis) was at first dated to 2.9 million years ago, which cast doubt on the ancestral position of both A. afarensis or A. africanus, but it has been re-dated to about 2 million years ago. [8] Several Australopithecus species have since been postulated to represent the ancestor to Homo, but the 2013 discovery ...
Lucy Catalog no. AL 288-1 Common name Lucy Species Australopithecus afarensis Age 3.2 million years Place discovered Afar Depression, Ethiopia Date discovered November 24, 1974 ; 50 years ago (1974-11-24) Discovered by Donald Johanson Maurice Taieb Yves Coppens Tom Gray AL 288-1, commonly known as Lucy or Dinkʼinesh, is a collection of several hundred pieces of fossilized bone comprising 40 ...
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Homo (from Latin homō 'human') is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus Australopithecus and encompasses only a single extant species, Homo sapiens (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively called archaic humans) classified as either ancestral or closely related to modern humans; these include Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis.