Ardipithecus ramidus discovered...

[Orion1]

Ardipithecus ramidus is a hominid who lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia.

Reference:
Video - Channel 4 news (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tkZMrzYp7U)
Video - Discovery channel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-YwvrR8qGI)
Video - Discovery channel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSIJcXXhyYM)
Video - Science Magazine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Din-QcZGRko)
Science Magazine - Ardipithecus ramidus (http://www.sciencemag.org/ardipithecus/)

[Andy Resnick]

There's been a lot about this in the local news, since a few of the scientists involved are local. But, there's been hardly any information about how 'Ardi' relates to 'Lucy' (who also has local ties...)

Can anyone here elaborate?

[ViewsofMars]

Awesome news! Thanks Orion1 and Andy.:biggrin:
I'm still scanning through a load of scientific papers
about this fantastic news.

Andy, I'm tied up to nearly everything with the click
of my computer mouse if the computer is running.
Hope this will give you added insight regarding your
question. It's from the University of Berkeley. Here
are two segments from Ethiopian desert yields
oldest hominid skeleton by Robert Sanders
(Media Relations), 01 October 2009 .

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/images/ardi-timelineHR.jpg
"This timeline shows the fossils upon which our current understanding of human evolution is based. The new fossil skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus, nicknamed Ardi, fills a large gap before the Lucy skeleton, Australopithecus afarensis, but after the hominid line split from the line that led to today's chimpanzees. (Science magazine)"


[snip]
It wasn't until 1 million years after Ardi that hominids
like Lucy were able to range extensively into the
savannas and develop the robust premolar and molar
teeth with thick enamel needed to eat hard seeds and
roots. One of these species then started scavenging
and using stone tools to butcher larger mammals for
meat, "paving the way to the evolution and geographic
expansion of Homo, including later elaboration of t
echnology and expansion of the brain," White[who
directs UC Berkeley's Human Evolution Research
Center] said.

White said Ardi, who probably weighed about 110
pounds, had a brain close to the size of today's
chimpanzees — one-fifth that of Homo sapiens —
and a small face. Males and females were about the
same size. The hominid's lack of resemblance to either
chimp or modern humans indicates that the last
common ancestor of apes and humans looked like
neither, he said, and that both lines have evolved
significantly since they split 6 million years ago.

White admits that the relationship between
Ar. ramidus and the Australopithecus fossils the team
has found about 80 meters higher in the strata of the
Ethiopian desert is tentative. Nevertheless, he said Ardi's
species could be the direct ancestor of Lucy's species,
which could be the direct ancestor of modern humans.
Without additional fossil evidence, however, connecting
the individual or species dots is hazardous, White said.

"Ardipithecus ramidus is only known from this one
productive site in Ethiopia," White said. "We hope others
will find more fossils, in particular fossils from the period
of 3 to 5 million years ago, to test this hypothesis of
descent."
[snip]
###


http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/10/01_ardiskeleton.shtml