Origins of Ardipithecus

The earliest hominid fossils come from three African sites. Ar. kadabba is from Ethiopia; it is the earlier chronospecies of Ar. ramidus. Orrorin tugenensis is from Kenya, and Sahelanthropus tchadensis is from the Sahel of Chad. All these fossils are dated to the interval between 5 million and 7 million years ago.

Unfortunately, these remains are very fragmentary, and, with the exception of jaws and teeth, there is little overlap in body part representation between the sites. Despite having been found far from each other, however, all three were very similar in size and shape of their known body parts. Furthermore, all three shared the same basic skeletal structure as the Aramis hominids, differing only in small details of the dentition. Therefore, because Ardipithecus was the first named genus, the Chadian and Kenyan fossils are probably subsumed within it. Additional fossils are needed to determine whether the fossils from all three countries actually belonged to the same species lineage.

When all of these Miocene Epoch fossil skeletons are considered together, patterns emerge that reveal the generalized dentition, nonsharpening canine premolar complex, and postcranial adaptations found in Ar. ramidus, which dates from the Early Pliocene Epoch. Together, these Late Miocene fossils, all recovered after 1992, offer insight into the earlier part of the first members of Ardipithecus.

Role in human evolution

Prior to the discovery of Ardipithecus, most people reasonably, but incorrectly, assumed that the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans was very much like the modern chimpanzee, a frugivorous knuckle-walking primate largely restricted to an African tropical forest habitat. The Ardipithecus fossils have no specifically chimpanzee-like features, and this indicates that the earliest hominids never passed through a chimpanzee-like stage. This finding surprised many scientists and much of the public, who had long envisioned that the ancestors of humans were early chimpanzees.

However, it was obvious to Darwin, who also opined on this matter, that a chimpanzee-like ancestor would not necessarily be the case, and he shied from making predictions about what the last common ancestor would most resemble. Historically, the genetic findings combined with a lack of pre-Australopithecus hominid fossils to raise the wrong expectations, which were later overthrown by the discoveries at Aramis. When Ardipithecus did not meet these expectations, some scientists even refused to accept it as a hominid, suggesting that it was some kind of “strange ape” that had evolved diminished, nonhoning canines, a shortened skull, a broader pelvis, and odd feet in parallel with later Australopithecus species. Historically speaking, each major new fossil discovered has been subjected to similar dismissals. Therefore, it was not surprising that the same objections were made to the interpretation of Ardipithecus as an early hominid and as the primate genus ancestral to Australopithecus.

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However, the anatomical and temporal gaps between Au. afarensis and Ar. ramidus were narrowed by the discovery of Au. anamensis in 1995. In the sequence of rocks in the Middle Awash study area, these three species were found in succession, with no overlap in geologic time. The youngest Ar. ramidus fossils there date to 4.4 million years ago, and the oldest members of Australopithecus found date to 4.2 million years ago. The rate at which early hominid evolution happened is still impossible to determine, because there are not enough fossils. Some paleontologists have suggested, however, that 200,000 years is too little time for Ar. ramidus to have given rise directly to early Australopithecus. The more recent discovery of a primitive Ardipithecus-like foot in 3.4-million-year-old sediments north of Hadar suggests that some form of the genus persisted in the Afar rift valley after Australopithecus had arrived on the scene.

Whether Ar. ramidus was the direct ancestor of Australopithecus or a relict of an earlier Ardipithecus species that evolved into Australopithecus cannot be determined at present. However, the genus Ardipithecus stands as the most likely ancestor of Australopithecus, and it provides the best insight into the biology of the earliest hominids and their immediate ancestors.

Ultimately, Ardipithecus fills one of the last major gaps in human evolution; it shows that the last common ancestor that humans shared with chimpanzees was not a chimpanzee-like animal, and it did not even resemble a chimpanzee in fundamental aspects of its biology. Rather, chimpanzees have been evolving ever since the human lineage split from theirs. (While the human lineage has been evolving, Africa’s chimpanzees diverged into two species, bonobos and chimpanzees, about 2 million years ago.) Ardipithecus gives strong evidence that the features associated with the chimpanzee lineage—that is, the peculiar shortened backs and flexible feet, as well as the knuckle-walking adaptations of the forelimb, the enlarged incisors for frugivory, and the long palates with tusklike male canines for fighting—emerged after the human lineage split from that of the chimpanzees. On the other side of the fork, humans evolved from ancestors that in the present day are classified into three genera. Ardipithecus and Australopithecus, the first two genera to evolve, were restricted to Africa. By approximately 3 million years ago, at least one species of Australopithecus began to make stone tools to butcher large mammals. Soon thereafter the genus Homo emerged, and hominids expanded their range from Africa into Eurasia.