South African find gets younger.The partial skeleton of a human ancestor ANCESTOR, descents. One who has preceded another in a direct line of descent; an ascendant. In the common law, the word is understood as well of the immediate parents, as, of these that are higher; as may appear by the statute 25 Ed. III. De natis ultra mare, and so in the statute of 6 R. previously found in South Africa South Africa, Afrikaans Suid-Afrika, officially Republic of South Africa, republic (2005 est. pop. 44,344,000), 471,442 sq mi (1,221,037 sq km), S Africa. dates to about 2.2 million years ago, roughly 1 million years younger than the original estimates, a new study finds. Researchers had hoped that the australopithecine aus·tra·lo·pith·e·cine n. Any of several extinct humanlike primates of the genus Australopithecus, known chiefly from Pleistocene fossil remains found in southern and eastern Africa. adj. fossil would shed light on the transition to an upright stance and tool use between 4, million and 3 million years ago. However, the ancient skeleton is too young to address those issues, say geologist Joanne Walker of the University of Leeds Organisation Faculties The various schools, institutes and centres of the University are arranged into nine faculties, each with a dean, pro-deans and central functions:
Their findings appear in the Dec. 8 Science. In 1995, another investigator noticed foot bones of the australopithecine in a box holding various fossils recovered in the 1970s at Sterkfontein cave, just north of Johannesburg. After nicknaming the find Little Foot, scientists found additional bones from the same individual in other boxes and in further excavations. Walker's group dated Sterkfontein mineral deposits situated just above and below the fossil remains. They used a method that considered the accumulation of a specific form of lead from the radioactive decay radioactive decay n. 1. Spontaneous disintegration of a radionuclide accompanied by the emission of ionizing radiation in the form of alpha or beta particles or gamma rays. 2. An instance of such disintegration. of uranium. This technique is more accurate than the methods used in initial estimates of Little Foot's age, the researchers hold.--B.B. |
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