Really old

Now it is proved: the hominid fossils of the kibish formation are the oldest survivors of anatomically modern people.

For many years, research has debated whether the survivors of the omo hominids found almost forty years ago in athiopia, actually the oldest traces of the early ancestors of man are, and whether the schadel of omo ii is not perhaps young. In the current ie of nature, australian anthropologists present their fairly unique results.

Omo ii: age or equal to old?

In 1967, the kenyer kamoya kimeeu found a schadel with part-skeleton (omo i) in the kibish-formation in the omo-basin in sudathiopia, a few kilometers away, another schadelbone (omo ii) was recovered. These fossils are still a sensation today, because they are the most old survivors of homo sapiens sapiens. Her age is on 195.000 years scated. They come from the time in which the first modern people began to explore the earth.

The two synchronism in comparison

But over omo i and omo ii quickly burned a debate, of which, whether the two fossils are the same age: in the eyes of science, omo i looks more modern than omo ii, because omo ii has no more preserved face, but his synchron is considerably massive built. He shows other muscle approaches and a fleeing forehead.

The kibish formation

A research team around ian mcdougall by the research school of earth sciences the australian national university in canberra has therefore made the controversial overrests again, more precisely: the scientists have undergone the rock in which the fossils were included in incoming analysis.

The kibish formation is 100 meters thick. Their layers come from a time when turkana lake and the omo river delta were still about 100 kilometers north of their present position. The formation was divided into four sections (i to iv). Omo i was recovered in the kamoya’s hominid site (khs), in section i, a siltsteinschlicht. Omo ii was excavated two and a half kilometers further northwest in paul’s hominid site (phs). He lay a bit deeper, but also in section i. On the basis of various sediment samples, mcdougall and his team now examined the age of deposits by means of the argon argon dating and they come to a very clear result: the two young people are around 195.000 years old — plus / minus 5.000 years. Thus, omo i and omo ii are actually as old as previously amed and they are both from the same time.

Exciting differences

Through certain characteristics of the skull, both distinguishes early people, but they are more or less equal to old. And it’s just these differences that make the finds so interesting and revealing. Because the deviations form the clues to which research tries to make a picture of how and in which pace the first people developed in the period from the middle for spade pleistozan in africa.

In 2001 excavated bones could be combined with the findings of 1967

The now present rock dating is in the eyes of dougall and colleagues as good as no doubt more about that the finds are actually as old, as so far scated. Omo i and omo ii represent the oldest remains of anatomically modern people. They are alter than the herto hominids, which were also excavated in athiopia and their age with around 160.000 years is given.