Scientists find hominid fossils that shed light on evolutionary gap

Jul 11, 2007, 15:09 GMT

Addis Ababa - Ethiopian scientists have discovered hominid fossils dating from 3.9 million years ago in what could fill a gap in the story of evolution, they said late Tuesday.

Yohannes Haile Selassie said the find - several complete jaws and other bones - could link two hominid species, including world famous Lucy, and shed light on a poorly known period of evolution between their existences.

'What we have sort of plugs into that gap. It gives us a better understanding of early human evolutionary history,' Haile Selassie said.

'It addresses specifically a hypothesis that has been proposed which is a relationship between two early human ancestors.'

Ethiopia's famous hominid skeleton Lucy, discovered in 1974 and believed to be between 3.3 and 3.6 million years old, is one of the thousands of paleontological finds in northern Ethiopia along the Great Rift Valley.

Scientists last year presented their discovery of fossils dating back to 4.1 million years ago.

The new find was dug out some 30 kilometres from where Lucy was discovered, Haile Selassie said, in Ethiopia's remote north-eastern Afar region.