{"id":471323,"date":"2025-12-25T19:29:54","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T19:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/471323\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T19:29:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T19:29:54","slug":"a-newly-discovered-species-complicates-the-human-origin-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/471323\/","title":{"rendered":"A newly discovered species complicates the human origin story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists studying fossils from Ethiopia\u2019s Afar Rift have uncovered evidence of another early human species which lived around the same time as Lucy, roughly 3.4 million years ago.<\/p>\n

For nearly 50 years, \u201cLucy\u201d has been one of the most famous fossils in the world. Discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, the 3.2-million-year-old skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis has long been seen as a key ancestor of modern humans. But new research suggests Lucy may not have been as unique as once thought.<\/p>\n

Scientists studying fossils from Ethiopia\u2019s Afar Rift have uncovered evidence of another early human species, Australopithecus deyiremeda, which lived around the same time as Lucy, roughly 3.4 million years ago. This discovery challenges the idea that Lucy\u2019s species was the only one dominating the landscape at the time.<\/p>\n

The team analyzed new jaw and tooth fossils, connecting them to a partial foot found more than a decade ago, known as the \u201cBurtele foot.\u201d Together, the remains show that A. deyiremeda was different from Lucy\u2019s species, not just a regional variation.<\/p>\n

While Lucy\u2019s species was well adapted for walking on two legs, the Burtele foot suggests A. deyiremeda still climbed trees. Their diets also differed: chemical analysis of teeth shows A. deyiremeda relied more on fruits and leaves, while Lucy\u2019s kind had a broader diet.<\/p>\n

\"AN<\/p>\n

AN UNDATED illustration shows the 3.4 million-year-old bones of the ”Burtele foot”, which belonged to the ancient human relative Australopithecus deyiremeda and were discovered in the Afar Rift region of Ethiopia, in their anatomical position and with the foot bones embedded in an outline of a goril (credit: Yohannes Haile-Selassie\/Handout via REUTERS)<\/p>\n

A common ancestor for human-like species<\/p>\n

Researchers think A. deyiremeda may be closely related to an even older species, Australopithecus anamensis. If so, this suggests that multiple human-like species may have evolved from a shared ancestor, creating a branching \u201cbush\u201d of early humans rather than a linear lineage to modern humans.<\/p>\n

This new evidence paints a picture of eastern Africa 3.5 million years ago as a busy place, with several species living alongside each other, each finding its own way to survive. While some scientists still see Lucy as a main ancestor of humans, it\u2019s becoming clear that she wasn\u2019t the only player in the story of our origins.<\/p>\n

As more fossils emerge from Ethiopia\u2019s ancient landscapes, the story of human evolution is being rewritten, showing that the path to humanity was far more complex, and far more crowded, than previously imagined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists studying fossils from Ethiopia\u2019s Afar Rift have uncovered evidence of another early human species which lived around…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":471324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[74997,193752,29991,45951,213951,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-471323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-australopithecus-afarensis","9":"tag-australopithecus-deyiremeda","10":"tag-ethiopia","11":"tag-fossils","12":"tag-human-species","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115781869762887209","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}