New Scientist
Image: twoshortplanks
Astonishing fossils are found every year, but we still haven’t dug up the original “missing link”. Where is this last common ancestor of humans and chimps? “I would love to know,” says Sergio Almécija of the George Washington University in Washington DC. “That question is keeping me awake at night.”
We have a pretty good idea when and where this creature was dragging its knuckles, or swinging through the trees: in Africa, around 7 million years ago. But fossil evidence will be very, very hard to find. After decades of searching we have a reasonably rich collection of fossils of our hominin ancestors stretching back 4 million years, but barely a couple of shoe boxes full from earlier lineages.
There are many reasons for this, says Nathan Young at the University of California, San Francisco. “Hominins are comparatively more abundant both because they began living in regions that are more likely to fossilise, like lake shores and caves, and there are a lot more people actively searching for them.” Read more on newscientist.com…
