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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Early Human Ancestor Disproved?


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An Algeripithecus jawbone fragment in a human hand gives a sense of the creature's size. The 3-ounce (85-gram) animal lived roughly 50 moillion years ago.

Recently unearthed Algeripithecus jawbones suggest that the species was not apelike and therefore is not humankind's earliest known African ancestor, a September 2009 study says.

Photograph courtesy Rodolphe Tabuce, CNRS