Bones of ancient human-like meat eater found in Ethiopia

Scientists speculate the bones discovered are about 2.5 million years old RELATED VIDEO CNN's Greg Lefevre reports on what scientists call the discovery of the first meat eating human ancestors. Windows Media 28K 80K

Scientists: Species may be earliest known ancestor of modern man

April 22, 1999
Web posted at: 7:49 p.m. EDT (2349 GMT)

BERKELEY, California (CNN) -- An international team of scientists has unearthed the skeleton of a human-like meat-eating creature that lived in Africa 2.5 million years ago and may be the earliest known ancestor of modern man.

Researchers say the newly discovered hominid species, tentatively named "Australopithecus garhi," marks a turning point in evolution.

With the ability to use tools to eat meat, the diet of the garhi was vastly improved and broadened, which led to improved brain power that increased their ability to reason and survive and ultimately produced modern humans.

"All of a sudden, this is a bipedal primate with a difference," said Tim White of the University of California at Berkeley, one of the leaders of the research team.

"We now have the clearest evidence these very early hominids were butchering mammals and were knowledgeable about the (marrow) within the bones, a highly valuable food source," he said.

The findings of the researchers, which included more than 40 scientists from 13 countries, is reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

The skeleton was discovered in the Afar desert in northeastern Ethiopia, beside what is believed to have been a lake during the time when the garhi lived there. Animal bones and tools were found near the skeleton, which researchers says is strong evidence that the creature ate meat.

However, it is not clear whether they hunted animals or merely took advantage of dead animals found around the lake.

The new species is descended from the one that produced the famous Lucy skeleton found in east Africa. Lucy lived 3.2 million years ago, and White said the gahri "could turn out to be the link" between the genus Homo, which includes modern humans, and its predecessor, Australopithecus, which includes Lucy.

However, anthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University in Washington said, "I don't think we can be sure (gahri is) an ancestor of later (humans)."

"What they've found is what many of us were expecting, that there is quite a lot of variety in early hominids ... in this particular period," Wood said.

The skeleton will stay in Ethiopia, where it is considered a national treasure. The name "garhi" comes from the local language and means "pleasant surprise."

Correspondent Greg Lefevre and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.