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Rare 3.8-million-year-old skull recasts origins of iconic ‘Lucy’ fossil

Ancient cranium discovered in Ethiopia suggests early hominin evolutionary tree is messier than we thought.
By
  1. Colin Barras

An ancient face is shedding new light on our earliest ancestors. Archaeologists have discovered a 3.8-million-year-old hominin skull in Ethiopia — a rare and remarkably complete specimen that could change what we know about the origins of one of humanity’s most famous ancestors, Lucy.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02573-w

Read the related News & Views article: ‘Elusive cranium of early hominin found’

References

  1. Haile-Selassie, Y., Melillo, S. M., Vazzana, A., Benazzi, S. & Ryan, T. M. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1513-8 (2019).

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