Discovery of Early Hominins-[link still missing]

 The immediate ancestors of humans were members of the genus Australopithecus .  The australopithecines  (or australopiths) were intermediate between apes and people.  However, both australopithecines and humans are biologically similar enough to be classified as members of the same biological tribe--the Hominini .  All people, past and present, along with the australopithecines are hominins .  We share in common not only the fact that we evolved from the same ape ancestors in Africa but that both genera are habitually bipedal , or two-footed, upright walkers.  By comparison, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas are primarily quadrupedal , or four-footed. 

Over the last decade, there have been a number of important fossil discoveries in Africa of what may be very early transitional hominins, or proto-hominins.  These creatures lived about the time of the divergence from our common hominid ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos, during the late Miocene and early Pliocene Epochs.  The fossils have been tentatively classified as members of three distinct genera--Sahelanthropus , Orrorin , andArdipithecus .  Sahelanthropus was the earliest, dating 7-6 million years ago.  Orrorin lived about 6 million years ago, while Ardipithecus remains have been dated to 5.8-4.4 million years ago.  At present, the vote is still out as to whether any of these three primates were in fact true hominins and if they were our ancestors.  The classification of Sahelanthropus has been the most in question.

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NOTE:  Our understanding of early hominins was led astray at the beginning of the 20th century as a result of the discovery by Charles Dawson in 1912 of a fossil skull in England that became known as the Piltdown man.  It had a large brain case similar to modern humans but an ape-like jaw.  This fit with the popular but incorrect assumption that our early ancestors would have ape-like bodies and human-like brains.  The discovery of australopithecines in South Africa beginning in 1924 showed that the early hominins were actually just the reverse―they had almost human-like bodies below the neck but brains that were very little changed in size from those of apes.  It was not until the early 1950's that the Piltdown man skull was exposed for what it really was, a clever fraud.  This realization came as a result of close examination by independent researchers and fluorine analysis dating.

Charles Dawson
Charles Dawson fraudster
Born	11 July 1864
Died	10 August 1916 (aged 52)
Cause of death	sepsis
Nationality	British
Known for	Piltdown Man

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the missing link?