Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

A fossil discovered in Germany has the potential to change the way we look at our own evolutionary pattern, its discoverers say. The 47-million-year-old “missing link” is about 20 times older than any of the other preserved remains of our ancestors, and it's also 95 percent complete, which means that anthropologists and archaeologists have a lot of material to work on. The “transactional” animal, named Ida, bears resemblance to non-human evolutionary lines, such as that of prosimians, but also to anthropoids such as monkeys, apes and humans, ScienceDaily reports. The ancient fossil, dating back from the Eocene age (56 to 34 million years ago), was found in the Messel Pit, Germany.

Over the last two years since the animal was found, an international team of scientists has been secretly conducting a very complex series of analyses on Ida, aiming to determine exactly how the species is related to us, or, better yet, what traits we share with the ancient fossil. The effort was led by Dr. Jørn Hurum from the University of Oslo Natural History Museum. The investigator is famous worldwide for his efforts in studying similar finds. “This is the first link to all humans (...) truly a fossil that links world heritage,” he said of the find.

Philip Gingerich, a professor at the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology, told that, “It’s really a kind of Rosetta Stone.” He is also one of the co-authors of a new study detailing the results of the investigation, which was recently published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, released by the Public Library of Science. The paper also backtracks the road the fossils made around the world since they were first discovered, around 1983. It seems like the “archaeologists” who discovered it split the sample in two, and sold it to different buyers, from the US and Norway.

The PLoS ONE paper was the first one detailing results obtained from studying the full specimen, the researchers added. The creature had opposable thumbs even at that early age, and also large nails at the tip of its fingers. These two traits link it to primates, while a foot bone called the talus bone links it directly to humans. Because of the unique conditions in which the animal was trapped in the deposit after it died, its body outline and guts contained also remained preserved. Anthropologists determined that Ida was a herbivorous animal, feasting on seeds, fruits and other such foods before its death.

According to the researchers, Ida may have died while trying to drink some water from the volcanic lake at the Messel Pit. She already had a broken arm, which was barely healing, and must have fallen unconscious due to the carbon dioxide gas that was coming out of the forming lake. The experts hypothesize that she must have fallen into the lake, and then to the lake floor, where unique conditions kept her preserved for 47 million years.

source : http://news.softpedia.com/news/Fossi...d-112019.shtml
( You Can find more about it in google and ... :D )

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

I would assume carbon dating, but I'm not much of an archeologist.

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

With fossils you usually do it by sediment layers and yeah I think they can also use carbon dating to make it more exact (they can use half-lives of some other elements and molecules if need be). They can also look at the food they x-rayed in the critters stomach to estimate at what period it existed in. It's not that complex, generally the deeper down in layers the older something will be lol. They're open to some error now and again, but in terms of evolution over millions of years its difficult for them to screw up that badly.

The fossils interesting but the media's emphasis of a possible human link is shit, everyone they've interviewed has said it's unlikely to be that closely related to human ancestry.

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

Just know it from school/being a twat, probably will get to learn more about it if I get into my uni/college course.

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

Only thing I'm going to say about this, is it's fishy. The scientists studied it, "in secret" for two years. There's a huge media blitz regarding it. It simply reminds me of the "discovery" of Bigfoot a few years back, the "discovery" of Life on Mars back in the 90's, and the "discovery" of Cold Fusion back in the 80's. I could very much be wrong. And if I am, I will be more than happy to admit it. But I just have this feeling that this "missing link" is going to turn out to be an exaggerated claim made by those scientist so they could make a name for themselves or cash in on a scam.

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

Either way it's neat. Always love reading about new fossils or ancient fish found and shit (like in Japan) lol.

It reminds me of something I watched on TV about a fossil found where it had a spinal cord similar to ours (except it stood only 3 to 4 ft in height and was found in Africa), and I'm wondering if this is related to it... I dunno, have to look it up I suppose.

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

A 47 million year old stupid monkey that died because he was retarded. A human monkey would be like nigga get out of there that water ain't no good.

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

^ Dude, people around the world still die from dirty water. lulz.

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

Well shake my balls and make me a milkshake, now I get it why its the missing link we are stupid since 47 million years ago.

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

Pretty much. It's good for what's considered primate evolution, though. Hype makes it sound like it's the connection between apes and humans when it's more like the connection between lemurs and primates. Or something like that. But how complete the fossil is means it's awesome for comparison purposes to any future discovered fossil. It's a significant discovery for people who study the shit out of fossils.

The journal is here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:...l.pone.0005723
Good blog about this stuff is here: http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/20...sing-link.html


And Mal, science has incredible dating methods. Science has such a thorough understanding of molecules that their accuracy in studying them is completely maximized. Scientists will know to the most possible exact degree how old something is, and will also know exactly how inaccurate they are and establish a margin of error.

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

They didn't bring it to public attention for 2 years so that they could carry out research on the fossil and come to sound conclusions based on investigation, that's what scientists are meant to do.

It's as 'fishy' as lucy, and archaeopteryx specimens lol.

I know, I was trying to be brief after going into too much detail about dating methods in that post - I do consider it more than just, "interesting." Anyway Attenborough told me all about this evening but thank you for those links.

Re: Fossil Ancestor of Humans and Primates Is 47 Million Years Old
 

this is silly we all know we came from adam and eve.... =/