Recently, Nature magazine published a heavy paper, saying that scientists found a nearly complete ancient human skull 3.8 million years ago in Ethiopia. This skull has brought new insights into the earliest Australopithecus and its origin, and will become a milestone in understanding human evolution.
Due to the lack of skull remains more than 3.5 million years ago, people know little about the earliest members of Australopithecus. Lakeside Australopithecus is the oldest known member. At present, the sample is mainly composed of jaws and teeth. Later, many ancient human skulls were discovered-dating back to 2 million to 3.5 million years ago.
This time, researchers from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in the United States reported a nearly complete skull from Ethiopia and classified it as a lakeside Australopithecus according to its teeth and jaws. This sample may belong to an adult male. The primitive skull shape links this fossil with older hominids, such as the sandman and the anthropoid ape in Chad, but it also questions the previous assumption that it is directly related to the Australopithecus afarensis.
Australopithecus afarensis is more recent, represented by the most famous "Lucy" fossil. At the same time, the above findings also show that Australopithecus lakeside and Australopithecus afarensis may have a coexistence period of at least 654.38 million+years (branch evolution), rather than the former being prior to the latter in a single evolutionary branch (gradual evolution).
Observation Network-Archaeologists discovered skull fossils 3.8 million years ago or subverted human evolutionary history.