Ancestor worship... Martin Pickford and kenyan anthropologist Eustae
Gifonga with fragments of the Millennium Ancestor. Below, Richard Leakey
in the early '80 with his best known discovery, 2.2 milion-year-old
"Lucy".
Millenium man
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press via NandoTimes.com
Published: 02/08/2001 Author: ELAINE GANLEY, Associated Press Writer
PARIS - French researchers on Tuesday unveiled what they believe is
man's
oldest known ancestor, more humanlike than the remains known as Lucy
and,
at 6 million years, nearly twice her age -- a finding bound to fuel
controversy over the origins of man.
The team that unearthed the 12 bones and teeth in central Kenya late
last
year say the remains suggest that fossils such as those of Lucy, known
scientifically as australopithecines, are not in the direct line of
human
ancestry.
The findings were presented at a news conference at the prestigious
College
de France, which funded the work. They are to be released later this
month
in Les Comptes-rendus de l'Academie des Sciences, the publication of
France's science academy. The Millennium Ancestor, as it is now dubbed,
will then be given a scientific name.
. The group contends that the jaws, teeth, arm, hand and leg bones show
that their Millennium Ancestor is the earliest known bipedal, or upright,
hominid -- and likely a direct precursor of man. The previously oldest
hominid remains, discovered in Aramis, Ethiopia, are dated at 4.5 million
years.
The researchers also say their fossils, found in the Lukeino Formation
of
the Rift Valley, suggest that Lucy, a 3.2 million-year-old hominid
discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, is not a direct human ancestor -- as
most
researchers have long contended.
Scientists are comparing the Millennium Ancestor to Lucy because her
remains are the most complete of what many paleoanthropologists --
anthropologists who study fossils -- believe is a likely human ancestor.
Forty percent of her skeleton was found.
The new claims are bound to be extremely contentious among scholars
of
human evolution, who have not yet had a chance to examine the fossils.
"Potentially, fossils of this antiquity could prove to be very important
and very exciting," said Donald C. Johanson, an Arizona State University
paleoanthropologist who led the team that discovered Lucy.
However, he said it was impossible to evaluate the claims properly without
the scientific publication.
For now, he said, "Lucy continues to be the touchstone by which all
of
these (fossils) are judged."
When on the ground, the Millennium Ancestor never walked on all fours
but
could still climb trees, said Martin Pickford of the College de France,
one
of the leaders of the Kenya team.
"I suspect that if you saw it walking around, you would say it is either
a
strange chimpanzee walking upright or it is a rather odd-looking human,"
he
said.
Just like humans, the Millennium Ancestor had much smaller teeth than
those
of australopithecines and a much larger femur, or thigh bone.
Australopithecines displayed the reverse -- small bodies and large
molar
teeth.
Another more humanlike characteristic is the proportion of cheek to
body
size -- which is suggested by the smaller molars and larger body --
1 1/2
times bigger than Lucy's, the team said. Lucy had larger cheeks and
a
smaller physique, the researchers said.
The French researchers believe that larger teeth are a key factor in
differentiating australopithecines from other human ancestors and also
suggest they are not in a direct line to humans.
But most paleoanthropologists place australopithecines in the direct
lineage of human evolution, making Lucy a direct ancestor.
"I think we can throw that aside now," said Pickford. "Here, we are
with a
creature ... older, more humanlike."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON, February 04, 2001, Sunday, Pg. 24
HEADLINE: Bones of contention On Tuesday, a team of French anthropologists
will announce that it has found the oldest hominid ever, in Kenya:
meanwhile, their American rivals insist their behaviour has been 'highly
irregular'. JULIAN COMAN in Paris reports
BYLINE: By Julian Coman
BODY: Dr Brigitte Senut emerged triumphantly from a corner of a ramshackle
office in Paris's Natural History Museum brandishing a bone. "This
is what
it's about," she told me, as her colleague, Dr Martin Pickford, nodded
enthusiastically.
"Here is a replica of the femur of the creature we
are calling
Millennium Ancestor. It is around six million years old; the oldest
discovery to date. Yet this bone is closer to a human thigh bone than
femurs that are 2.5 million years younger.
"The creature to whom this belonged appears to be
both more ancient and
yet more human than previous findings. It can provide a new key to
our
pre-human origins."
The Millennium Ancestor, an upright fruit-eater
about the size of a
chimpanzee, is about to make its European debut as the latest clue
to the
enigma of mankind's first ancestor. At a press conference in Paris
on
Tuesday, Dr Senut and Dr Pickford will present their discovery, found
in
the Baringo region of Kenya.
If they are right about its importance, the finding
will be one of the
biggest anthropological scoops of all time: theories of evolution will
have
to be rewritten to include a new and fundamental branch of the human
family
tree. The two anthropologists will look forward to television rights,
a
best-selling book and film proposals. Celebrated palaeontological
reconstructions such as Lucy (1974), Nutcracker Man (1959) and Handy
Man
(1963) will fade into insignificance.
Yet if Dr Senut and Dr Pickard, a member of the College
de France, are
hoping for gratitude and admiration from their academic peers, they
will be
disappointed. Millennium Ancestor's emergence after six million years
has
provoked an unseemly outbreak of name-calling, litigation and academic
feuding between some of the world's finest anthropological minds.
In Nairobi, 150 miles from where Millennium Ancestor
was found, murmurs
of professorial discontent are growing louder. In the major American
universities, doctors of anthropology and palaeontology are seething.
The race to find the evolutionary "missing link"
between apes,
chimpanzees and humans has never been one for the intellectually squeamish.
Few fields of academic endeavour have proved as cut-throat.
All kinds of deceits and tricks have been tried -
and more than once.
Ape skulls have been mixed with human fragments to produce shock
"discoveries" of pre-humans. Palaeontologists have been known to add
a
million years to the age of a bone in the hope of an extra few thousand
pounds of funding. Nevertheless, even by the standards of a notoriously
acrimonious business, the "bone wars", as insiders call them, have
just
enjoyed a humdinger of a year.
In Kenya - which has taken over from Ethiopia as
the new front line in
anthropological research - the legal count stands at two court cases,
one
arrest and a catalogue of written and verbal complaints. Anthropologists,
palaeontologists and molecular biologists have been at loggerheads
for
months, divided by mutual suspicion and national loyalties. The discovery
of Millennium Ancestor has brought fragile academic tempers to breaking
point.
Two anthropological teams are at the heart of the
battle. One is the
Kenya Palaeontology Expedition, funded by the French state and headed
by
Dr Pickford and Dr Senut. Dr Pickford is of British origin, but
joined the
French cause after a series of rows with the anglophone-dominated National
Museums of Kenya. He and Dr Senut now rely on the backing of the newly
formed Community Museums of Kenya for authorisation.
Competition comes in the form of the Baringo Palaeolontological
Research Project, headed by Dr Andrew Hill of Yale University. The
two
groups have come to hate the sight of each other. A senior natural
historian in Britain says: "The current situation in Kenya has gone
way
beyond the ordinary rivalries that you get between teams and expeditions,
particularly in this field. In Kenya, it's feuding, plain and simple."
There is even an acrimonious turf war being waged
by the two teams. Dr
Hill believes that the American expedition has sole rights to dig and
search in and around the Baringo area, having received permits from
the
National Museums of Kenya. Dr Senut and Dr Pickford argue that the
French
team has legitimate permits from the Community Museums of Kenya. For
months, the anthropologists have brandished their respective passes
at
each other. Last March, simmering animosity came to the boil.
Dr Richard Leakey, the most famous of all bone-war
veterans in Kenya
and a sympathiser with Dr Hill, sent a letter about Dr Pickford to
the
director-general of the National Museums of Kenya. "At this moment,"
wrote
Dr Leakey, "a Dr M. Pickford is in Turkana collecting fossils, some
of
which he plans to export to France for study. Unless I am mistaken,
the
collecting and export are illegal and action should be taken without
delay. I suggest that you urgently get assistance from the director
of CID and
send an officer to intercept Pickford. He should be formally charged."
Dr Pickford, who once worked for Dr Leakey at the
National Museums,
was duly intercepted and placed under arrest in a Nairobi jail. That
seemed to
leave the way clear for the Yale team. But within five days, Dr Pickford
had negotiated his release. "They had no grounds to keep me in prison,"
he
told The Sunday Telegraph. "My lawyers showed the judge my collecting
permit and it became clear they had no case against me."
The plot then thickened. Dr Leakey's supposedly private
letter was
mysteriously leaked to a Nairobi newspaper. In an editorial, the newspaper
made a connection between the letter and a book that Dr Pickford had
co-authored some years earlier, entitled Richard Leakey, Master of
Deceit.
Nairobi watched half aghast and half amused as the representatives
of
Western academia continued to slug it out.
Dr Pickford took Dr Leakey to court, suing for compensation
and
damages for his five days in prison. The case is still going on. As
the legal
battles raged, the American and French teams kept digging. Dr Hill
continued to complain that his competitors had no right to be there:
the
French continued to ignore him.
Finally, at the beginning of December, the French
discovered
Millennium Ancestor: in reality a collection of around 40 bones belonging
to five
males and females. Dr Hill complained to Meave Leakey, sister of Richard
and head of palaeontology at the National Museums.
Ms Leakey responded by declaring that all fossils
found in Kenya
legally belonged to the National Museums and had to be kept there.
The
French team denied that such a law existed, held a press conference
and
prepared to announce their triumph in Paris. Dr Pickford even managed
to
win the support of the Kenyan President, Daniel arap Moi.
The Yale team angrily protested that the French were
celebrating
before any independent verification of what they had found. But Dr
Senut's
delight at beating the Americans is obvious.
"There is a bias against French palaeontology in
the anglophone
world," she said. "For example, I have even been told by one prominent
English-speaking anthropologist that I should stick to former French
Africa. I have had papers turned down by American journals for no good
reason, or simply lost altogether. One journal claimed to have lost
five
copies of a single paper."
For their part, American academics appear to be torn
between trying to
ignore Millennium Ancestor and savaging Dr Pickford in American journals.
In the Washington-based Science Magazine, Dr Hill
commented sourly
that the Kenyan affair has been "highly irregular". "If Dr Pickford
knows the
date [of the bones], it's only thanks to our work," he said.
Bernard Wood, an anthropologist at George Washington
University,
described the turn of events as "extremely unfortunate", claiming that
Dr
Pickford had lost his collecting permits as far back as 1998, an assertion
vehemently denied by Dr Pickford. After Tuesday's press conference
in
Paris, the palaeontological merry-go-round will be revived as the French
team returns to the Beringo dig.
Dr Pickford believes that "there is a lot more out
there, possibly
even older than Millennium Ancestor", while Dr Hill, after 20 years'
work in
the area, is unlikely to back down. In any case, until the academic
papers on
Millennium Ancestor are published, no one can be sure how important
it is.
"Anything that old is certain to be interesting and
significant," said
Chris Stringer, an expert on hominids at the Natural History Museum
in
London. "But the French chose to do it a certain way, publicising before
they published their results. We'll have to wait a bit before we know
just
what has been found."
When one is fighting a battle in the bone wars, a
little advance
propaganda never does any harm.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Independent (London), February 7, 2001, Wednesday, Pg. 3
HOW 14 PIECES OF BONE AND SIX MILLION YEARS COULD REWRITE THE
STORY OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
John Lichfield In Paris And Steve Connor
THEY ARE the latest bones of contention in
the long-running saga of
man's earliest origins. Yesterday in Paris, scientists revealed the
remains
of what is thought to be the oldest known, direct ancestor of humanity.
An international team of palaeontologists from
France, Britain and
Kenya say that the 14 fragments of "Millennium Man" are a staggering
6
million years old, about twice the age of what was once considered
to be
the oldest of our ape -like ancestors.
The partial remains of four Millennium Men
and one Millennium Woman
were displayed publicly for the first time in a lecture hall at the
College de France in Paris.
The team, which has yet to publish the findings
formally in a
scientific journal, found the bones last October and November at the
foot
of a steep escarpment in the Kenyan segment of the Great Rift Valley
of
East Africa, universally acclaimed as the "cradle of humankind".
The French-financed and led Kenya Palaeontology
Expedition found most
of the remains at palaeontology sites in the remote Tugen Hills of
the
Baringo district.
Already, the scientists are suggesting
that what they have gleaned
from the shape and structure of the ancient creature's teeth, jaw,
and
limb bones will overturn established thinking on human evolution.
They believe that Millennium Man - whose scientific
name has still to
be announced - is both older and "more human-like" than "Lucy", the
famous
ape -like hominid discovered in Ethiopia in 1974 and estimated to be
3
million years old.
The conventional view is that Lucy, officially
known as
Australopithecus afarensis, was an early ancestor of present-day Homo
sapiens, although its closer resemblance to apes precluded it from
being
classed as a true member of the human (Homo) family.
However, finding a hominid creature that is
twice as old and probably
even more "human" than Lucy suggests that, if anything, Lucy was a
mere
side-show, an evolutionary "dead end" who has no direct descendants
living
today.
It could mean that Millennium Man and Woman
are our true, direct
ancestors. As the team in Paris explained: Lucy may be one of our many
"Great Aunts", but Millennium Man could be our "great, great, great
grandfather".
Preliminary studies suggest that he stood just
under five feet tall,
could walk strongly on two legs - but also lived in trees - and ate
both
fruit and meat. The species had smallish teeth but strong lower limbs
for
efficient bipedalism.
The scientists, who included the British geologist
Martin Pickford,
said that Millennium Man could be a "pre-human" hominid. "The find
opens a
new, earlier chapter in human history," he said.
Leslie Aiello, professor of biological anthropology
at University
College London, one of many palaeontologists anxious to hear more about
the find, said that if those early reports were confirmed, and the
6-
million-year date was validated, there could be little doubt of its
importance.
"What it means is that this creature is as
old in relation to Lucy as
Lucy is to us. We used to think that Lucy was a standard example of
an
early hominid ancestor, but this species appears to be twice as old
as
her," Professor Aiello said.
The bones of Millennium Man, named after the
year in which he was
discovered, add the latest twist to the complex tale of human evolution,
a
story beset by controversy and debate. The traditional view of our
early
origins is that a common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans emerged
in
Africa some 8 or 10 million years ago. The species evolved into the
many
branches of the ancestral tree, eventually giving rise to the direct
line
leading to Homo sapiens.
One of the first true members of the human
family, Homo erectus, used
fires and tools and was the first to expand its geographical range
beyond
Africa, giving rise to lineages such as "Peking man" in China and "Java
man" in Indonesia.
Many palaeontologists believe that it was the
African branch of Homo
erectus that eventually gave rise to "archaic" Homo sapiens, some 100,000
years ago, who subsequently migrated out of Africa to populate the
globe,
replacing completely the Asian lines of Homo erectus who had migrated
from
Africa many thousands of years earlier.
This "out of Africa" model, however, is fiercely
disputed by the
"multiregional" scientists who believe that humans continued to evolve
in
several centres in Asia and Europe as wave upon wave of early humans
migrated from Africa and intermingled with their Asian cousins.
The latest findings relating to Millennium
Man shed some light on the
formative period leading to the eventual emergence of the first humans.
The Paris team's belief is that Millennium
Man belonged to a period
at the very beginning of human evolution - possibly 2 million years
after the
apes and the "Australopithecene" hominids such as Lucy had branched
off
from one another.
"In the state of our knowledge at present,
we believe that Millennium
Man - living 6 million years ago, 3 million years earlier than Lucy
- was
more clearly in the human line of descent than the Australopithecenes,"
said Professor Brigitte Senut of the French national museum of natural
history. "Lucy has been described as our oldest ancestor. Millennium
Man
is older and he may be more of an ancestor," Professor Senut added.
Several of the fossil bones show signs of having
being gnawed or
clawed by a predator. Thousands of bone fragments from other animals
were
found at the three sites where the humanid bones were uncovered, possibly
the victims of an early species of great cat.
Professor Senut said that the newly discovered
hominid creature had
strong, large lower limbs, about equal in size to a full-grown male
chimpanzee. It was larger by half than Lucy and there were signs -
from
traces of buttock-muscle attachments on the upper femurs - that it
was
more comfortable than Lucy when standing erect.
The teeth were much smaller than those of Lucy,
more like those of a
chimpanzee but also - in the fact that they had thick coatings of enamel
-
reminiscent of those of modern man. There was also the fossil of an
index
finger, which showed signs of the strength and flexibility needed to
climb
trees.
The combination of strong lower limbs and smallish
teeth was unknown
in a creature dating from such an early period in hominid history.
Altogether, the fossil bones and teeth indicated a creature confident
on
two legs, ate mostly thick-skinned fruit but also meat and had not
lost
the habit of taking refuge in trees.
Mr Pickford said that the area in which the
fossils were found, in
the dried up bed of a lake and a river, was a potential "treasure trove"
of
palaeontological discoveries. The successive layers of rock and sediment
had been identified as belonging to periods between 1 million and 15
million years old.
Since searches had only just begun, the team
was hopeful of finding
further traces of Millennium Man and possibly pushing back the story
of
human evolution even further.
Mr Pickford admitted, however, that the claims
could be open to
challenge. There was no proof, for instance, that the large limbs and
small teeth of the creature - the key finding - were not from two different
ape-like or human-like creatures. "We are confident that, since the
bone
and teeth fossils were found in the same place, and can be dated to
the
same period, they did come from the same animal," he said.
Only by publishing their results in a scientific
journal and opening
their data to scrutiny will the scientists convince the world they
have
found the oldest known human ancestor.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Telegraph, London
Tuesday, February 6, 2001
Bones of contention
It's all bitter feuds and dirty tricks as rival anthropologists
race to claim they've found the'missing link', writes Julian
Coman.
Dr Brigitte Senut emerged triumphantly from a corner of a
ramshackle office in Paris's Natural History Museum brandishing
a bone. "This is what it's about," she says, as her colleague, Dr
Martin Pickford, nods enthusiastically.
"Here is a replica of the femur of the creature we are calling
Millennium Ancestor. It is around 6 million years old; the oldest
discovery to date. Yet this bone is closer to a human thigh bone
than femurs that are 2.5 million years younger.
"The creature to whom this belonged appears to be both more
ancient and yet more human than previous findings. It can provide
a new key to our prehuman origins."
The Millennium Ancestor, an upright fruit-eater about the size of
a chimpanzee, is about to make its European debut as the latest
clue to the enigma of mankind's first ancestor. At a press
conference in Paris today, Senut and Pickford will present their
discovery, found in the Baringo region of Kenya.
If they are right about its importance, the finding will be one
of the biggest anthropological scoops of all time; theories of
evolution will have to be rewritten to include a new and
fundamental branch of the human family tree.
The two anthropologists will look forward to television rights, a
best-selling book and film proposals. Celebrated palaeontological
reconstructions such as Lucy (1974), Nutcracker Man (1959) and
Handy Man (1963) will fade into insignificance.
Yet if Senut and Pickford, a member of the College de France, are
hoping for gratitude and admiration from their academic peers,
they will be disappointed. Millennium Ancestor's emergence after
6 million years has provoked an unseemly outbreak of name-calling,
litigation and academic feuding between some of the world's finest
anthropological minds.
In Nairobi, 240 kilometres from where Millennium Ancestor was
found, murmurs of professorial discontent are growing louder. In
the major American universities, doctors of anthropology and
palaeontology are seething.
The race to find the evolutionary "missing link" between apes,
chimpanzees and humans has never been one for the intellectually
squeamish. Few fields of academic endeavour have proved as
cut-throat.
All kinds of deceits and tricks have been tried - and more than
once. Ape skulls have been mixed with human fragments to produce
shock "discoveries" of prehumans. Palaeontologists have been
known to add a million years to the age of a bone in the hope of
extra funding.
Nevertheless, even by the standards of a notoriously acrimonious
business, the "bone wars", as insiders call them, have just
enjoyed a humdinger of a year.
In Kenya - which has taken over from Ethiopia as the frontline in
anthropological research - the legal count stands at two court
cases, one arrest and a catalogue of written and verbal
complaints. Anthropologists, palaeontologists and molecular
biologists have been at loggerheads for months, divided by mutual
suspicion and national loyalties. The discovery of Millennium
Ancestor has brought fragile academic tempers to the surface.
Two anthropological teams are at the heart of the battle. One is
the Kenya Palaeontology Expedition, funded by France and headed
by Pickford and Senut. Pickford is of British origin but joined the
French
cause after a series of rows with the anglophone-dominated National
Museums of Kenya. He and Senut now rely on the backing of the
newly formed Community Museums of Kenya for authorisation.
Competition comes in the form of the Baringo Palaeolontological
Research Project, headed by Dr Andrew Hill of Yale University.
The two groups have come to hate the sight of each other. A
senior natural historian in Britain says: "The current situation
in Kenya has gone way beyond the ordinary rivalries that you get
between teams and expeditions, particularly in this field. In
Kenya, it's feuding, plain and simple."
There is even an acrimonious turf war being waged by the two
teams. Hill believes that the American expedition has sole rights
to dig and search in and around the Baringo area, having received
permits from the National Museums of Kenya. Senut and Pickford
argue that the French team has legitimate permits from the
Community Museums of Kenya. For months, the anthropologists
have brandished their respective passes at each other. Last March,
simmering animosity came to the boil.
Dr Richard Leakey, the most famous of all bone-war veterans in
Kenya and a sympathiser with Hill, sent a letter about Pickford
to the director-general of the National Museums of Kenya.
"At this moment," wrote Leakey, "a Dr M. Pickford is in Turkana
collecting fossils, some of which he plans to export to France
for study. Unless I am mistaken, the collecting and export are
illegal and action should be taken without delay. I suggest that
you urgently get assistance from the director of CID and send
an officer to intercept Pickford. He should be formally charged."
Pickford, who once worked for Leakey, was duly placed under
arrest in a Nairobi jail. That seemed to leave the way clear for
the Yale team. But within five days, Pickford had negotiated his
release: "My lawyers showed the judge my collecting permit
and it became clear they had no case against me."
The plot thickened. Leakey's supposedly private letter was
mysteriously leaked to a Nairobi newspaper, which connected
the letter and a book Pickford had earlier co-authored Richard
Leakey, Master of Deceit. Nairobi watched half aghast and half
amused as the representatives of Western academia continued
to slug it out.
Pickford is now suing Leakey for damages for his five days in
prison.
Meantime, the American and French teams kept digging. Hill
continued to complain that his competitors had no right to be
there; the French continued to ignore him.
Finally, at the beginning of December, the French discovered
Millennium Ancestor, in reality a collection of about 40 bones
belonging to five males and females. Hill complained to Meave
Leakey, sister of Richard and head of palaeontology at the
National Museums.
Meave Leakey responded by declaring that all fossils found in
Kenya legally belonged to the National Museums and had to be
kept there. The French team denied that such a law existed, held
a press conference and prepared to announce their triumph in Paris.
The Yale team angrily protested that the French were celebrating
before any independent verification of what they had found. But
Senut's delight at beating the Americans is obvious: "There is a
bias against French palaeontology in the anglophone world. For
example, I have even been told by one prominent English-speaking
anthropologist that I should stick to former French Africa. I
have had papers turned down by American journals for no good
reason, or simply lost."
For their part, American academics appear to be torn between
trying to ignore Millennium Ancestor and savaging Pickford in
American journals.
In the Washington-based Science Magazine, Hill commented sourly
that the Kenyan affair has been "highly irregular". "If Dr
Pickford knows the date of the bones, it's only thanks to our
work."
Bernard Wood, an anthropologist at George Washington University,
described the turn of events as "extremely unfortunate", claiming
that Pickford had lost his collecting permits as far back as
1998, an assertion vehemently denied by Pickford. After today's
press conference in Paris, the palaeontological merry-go-round
will be revived as the French team returns to the Beringo dig.
Pickford believes that "there is a lot more out there, possibly
even older than Millennium Ancestor", while Hill, after 20 years'
work in the area, is unlikely to back down.
Oryginal:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0102/06/features/features1.html.smh.com.au
Ancestor worship... Martin Pickford and kenyan anthropologist Eustae
Gifonga with fragments of the Millennium Ancestor. Below, Richard Leakey
in the early '80 with his best known discovery, 2.2 milion-year-old
"Lucy".
POWRÓT