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Articles » Anthropology
Evolution
and Anthropology
Sasha Soon
Forensic Anthropology can help solve crimes and different kinds of cases but recently, scientists have not talking about how they can solve crimes, but they are addressing the importance of bones and how they can help determine sex and evolution.
In South Africa, scientists have revealed the details of about a pair of fossils, which include the most complete ape-man skull ever excavated. The pair, that has come to be called Orpheus and Eurydice, is over 1.5 to 2 million years old and has been identified as Paranthropus robustus, which became extinct about 1 million years ago.
Scientists claim that they are not direct ancestors of humans but are more like "kissing cousins". They say that the skull belongs to a female while the other fossil, a lower jawbone or mandible, belongs to a male.
Experts have said that the significance of the find is the fact that they now know what a female Paranthropus robustus looks like and they also know the difference between the male and the female of the species. A crest along the top of the male's skull to which the muscles of the lower jaw are anchored shows these differences. The female, which is smaller, had no such crest, this is a distinction found today in male and female gorillas.
With this find, scientists hope to find clues to human's own march up the evolutionary ladder.
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Excavate
- to expose or uncover
Stoddard, Ed. "South African Ape Man Skull Stirs Scientific Excitement."
AOL News (04-26-00)
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