Discovering Ardi (Ardipithecus Ramidus)
Following publication in October, 2009 of multiple papers on the discovery and study of a 4.4 million-year-old female partial skeleton nicknamed Ardi in the journal Science, Discovery Channel presented a world premiere special, Discovering Ardi that documented the sustained, intensive investigation leading up to this landmark publication of the Ardipithecus Ramidus fossils.
The scientific investigation began in the Ethiopian desert 17 years ago, and now opens a new chapter on human evolution, revealing the first evolutionary steps our ancestors took after we diverged from a common ancestor we once shared with living chimpanzees.
Ardi's centerpiece skeleton, the other hominids she lived with, and the rocks, soils, plants and animals that made up her world were analyzed in laboratories around the world, and the scientists have now published their findings in the prestigious journal Science.
Ardi is now the oldest skeleton from our (hominid) branch of the primate family tree. These Ethiopian discoveries reveal an early grade of human evolution in Africa that predated the famous Australopithecus nicknamed Lucy.
Ardipithecus was a woodland creature with a small brain, long arms, and short legs. The pelvis and feet show a primitive form of two-legged walking on the ground, but Ardipithecus was also a capable tree climber, with long fingers and big toes that allowed their feet to grasp like an ape's. The discoveries answer old questions about how hominids became bipedal.
I appreciate this article sticking to the facts but why do all the other articles written about Ardi use the word evolve & link at all?? In all the articles about Ardi she walked upright had a stiff toe & flat teeth. She's human. Gees! Just give up the missing link issue please! I'm not even sure there's is evidence of fur in the face either. That seems presumptious to me. Just saying over 5 million yrs old & human. Can't go too much older...
I think not to say humans come from apes because until now apes that still exist, and scientists still can not explain it clearly, if true ape ancestor Homo sapiens, was evidenced by the ability of technology can not answer whether ardi Ardipithecus ramidus is the same and there are other opinions, our ancestors came from adam, so far the scientists focused on the discovery of human-like fossils why not prove humans came from adam and Eve, scientists from either side but the other side is less developed
they go on about how bipedality is so weird and special in humans. Hello! birds do it all the time! But they say it's weird in all of the animal kingdom. Birds are a part of the animal kingdom! If they said bipedality is unique in just the mammal kingdom then i would understand. but these are scientist, come on... also a lot of dinosaurs walked bipedaly so its not that weird at all . PS: i know, birds are related to dinos.
There is, of course, the opposite... by John Pickrell
"Humans, Chimps Not as Closely Related as we thought." But I'll let you come up with your own conclusions.
Never ever ask a question.
So let us look at them. What do you say?
So what do you say? Hard to prove? What do you say?
it is clear from the constant wall of text that you guys have been baited...i called this from the start.
I looked up Emory's Yerkes Center. They say they house 3400 non-human primates. They don't say how many human primates they house.
@Steve,
If you work in Emory University's Darwinian Neuroscience Lab, and you disagree with the per-reviewed document authored by a diverse international team in 2009, plus if you have some solid evidence (behavioral or not), why in the Thor's name you're not publishing your own document to AAAS for per-review.
The community will try to shred it to pieces but if the logic and the evidence is on your side you shouldn't be afraid. After all you say you're scientist, you know how things work in the process.
I encourage you to start working on your new thesis. Your friend can help you. Good luck.
you people are such scientist.
Please someone address that logical problem without saying I don't know enough about anthropology or referring me to studies that make the same assumption.
educated on what though?
educated has such a positive connotation.
how educated is someone that refuses to listen to logic?
how educated is someone that makes sweeping generalizations and then condemns an entire theory because "our evidence looks better."
your evidence is horse.
Funny how this conversation gets very short if i don't bring GOD in the picture.
If anthropological/archeological science was to come up with an alien looking body (which frankly these could be for what we know), people would be quick to say, he was a sick person or it was an exception or or or...
We have an agreed, by the science community, version of evolution and until someone comes up with a better idea, the educated crowd will bow to and admire the past even though most of them have never set foot on the researched field shovel in hands.
az
@Vlatko
Right, they are vanishingly rare. So? So because they are vanishingly rare, we should make a sweeping assumption about our history because the bones of one (assuming all those bones came from the same creature) look similar?
AND why is it that (accepted) science does not research the possibility of aliens having altered our conception and perhaps providing a missing link? Why are educated people bringing this idea forward have to be thought as lunatics?
I would think science especially would be very curious about that possibility knowing full well that science itself is about (or wishing) to take humans in deep space.
az
In all the years archaeological search have been done, we are presented now and then with a "most ancient" specimen that is suppose to have been collected almost complete within an area. Why is it that there is always just one specimen? Why not 20 or more or less within the area? We know apes hang in groups as we do, so why are they finding 1? Where are all the found specimen that "may" contradict their hypothesis?
az
"nuh-uh" is not an argument. prove me wrong....
Do you know enough about the fossil records to state that they are inconsistent. You obviously haven't.
Do you know enough about the scientific evidence for evolution to state that you have more? I don't think you have any at all.
Do you know enough about Ardi to state that it was completely separate from humans and chimps (whatever that means)? You obviously don't know what you're talking about.
Do you know enough about science to characterize it as self-serving? I don't think that you have any idea what you mean by this.
Do you know enough about Jesus to characterize him? No one does--not even you.
You accuse me of uncritically accepting everything I hear and read--well, what and how much have you read? What and how much have you studied? Answer, next to nothing.
Your posts qualify as some of the most ignorant, in both content and thought, ever placed on this website.
I know that the fossil records are inconsistent and that much conjecture needed to be made to connect missing pieces of the anthropological timeline. The inconstancies are chalked up to what? Unfinished science? Sure...why not. Maybe it's the Devil. You want to talk about evidence, you "scientists" have as much evidence as I do. I know that there is a severe problem with the scientist's argument for Darwin's theories when you consider the possibility that this "Ardi" was completely separate entity from humans today (i.e., that "three-pronged" branch analogy could have had another prong that was "Ardi" and humans as we know it could have extended from the moment He created us). Maybe I can break the problem down for you...Ardi is being used to further the argument that there was a common link between humans and chimps. The argument fails if you consider that Ardi was completely separate from both humans and chimps. I watched an hour and a half of a video that completely didn't examine one fatal flaw in it's own argument. You say science is impartial, I say science is self-serving. Jesus actually DOES care about all of us and it behooves human kind not to get sucked into the self-serving dogma that is science. You may despise me Robertallen1....but I will pray for you. I will pray for all of you. I will pray that you actually listen critically to things you hear and not simply accept them as true.
I'm just trying to say that there are inconstancies in the arguments conjured up by these "scientists" and the words written by the prophets as they actually experienced it. Free Speech and all that...1st amendment. Wouldn't want to censor people. But, that doesn't mean it's right to confuse everyone with this pseudo-science.
@Vlatko
I hope that is a joke. I think we all know there is only one God...and he wasn't a monkey nor was he Nordic. This stuff about apes is very nice mental you-know-what...but we don't know for sure. We do know that all those fossils are just put there by the Devil to throw us off from following His word. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but know that the wrong one will send you to the fiery depths of you-know-where.
This is blasphemy and against the TRUE word of God. You scientists should all be ashamed and I hope that He forgives you and lets you obtain the splendor of Heaven.
Ye gods, this documentary is frustrating!! 20% facts, 80% rhetoric. JUST GET ON WITH IT!! I have to say I find this happens a lot with the Discovery Channel. Can't they just cut the waffle? And the background music - this isn't an episode of 24.
Man at the top of the pyramid is an anthropocentric view. Man has co-evolved alongwith other multicellular organisms and to think that Chimpanzee has preevolved hominid is not tenable. If we go back on the evolutionary scale we may get more and more of Ardi like creatures. Going by the evolutionary theory of Darwin only subtle changes which will be evolutionally important to advance the progeny of an animal or a living being, will be reckoned. The smaller canine, missing tail,bipedalism is sufficient proof that apes are a way different from hominid. My guess is Ardi was a tree climber, the long hands and legs must have been used regularly to grip the branches for foraging. Carrying food for the group is an activity bordering altruism,which might have not evolved during that period. Probabaly if some light could be thrown on Lucy's period we may be able to understand the bonding of groups, as cranial capacity of Lucy is more than that of Arid. If we go back many more million years before Arid, we may come across a smaller version of Arid but not of an ape. The genetical progression has taken place in the Hominid branch of the evolutionary tree only and to reach for the ultimate link between apes and man may not be visible at all. The language area in the brain of man, is the ultimate proof that the two never met, even during the eocene times. I thank Discovery channel for the wonderful presentation.