US Fossil - Skeleton of ancient 3-year-old girl found
NAME: US FOSSIL 20060920I
TAPE: EF06/0866
IN_TIME: 10:08:53:18
DURATION: 00:02:41:09
SOURCES: AP/VNR
DATELINE: Various, 20 Sept 2006/File
RESTRICTIONS:
SHOTLIST:
National Geographic
Afar region, Ethiopia - Recent
1. Various of Zeresenay Alemseged, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, showing child's skeleton
AP Television
Washington, DC - 20 September 2006
2. SOUNDBITE: (English) Chris Sloan, Senior Editor National Geographic Magazine:
"The skeleton is the most complete of this species now. We have more bits of bone from more bones of the body than any other Australopithecine specimen. It is also, since it is a baby, it is also very significant. We simply don't have babies this complete and much information about babies. So we will learn what human ancestor babies are like in a way that hasn't been possible before."
National Geographic
Afar region, Ethiopia - Recent
3. Zeresenay Alemseged, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, with the child's skeleton
4. Various of skull and bones
AP Television
Washington, DC - 20 September 2006
5. Various of Sloan talking
6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Chris Sloan, Senior Editor National Geographic Magazine:
"Scientists think that this baby might have been killed in a flood. The reason is that the bones of this body are found together, some are actually concreted together in a block of stone and the scenario for this would be a body falling into a river perhaps or a flash flood and getting rolled and quickly buried in sand."
7. Cover of National Geographic magazine showing artists impression of the baby
National Geographic
Afar region, Ethiopia - Recent
8. Wide view of workers going to site
9. Close-up workers sifting through rubble
AP Television
Washington, DC - 20 September 2006
10. SOUNDBITE: (English) Chris Sloan, Senior Editor National Geographic Magazine:
"We are funding Ethiopian scientists themselves - there is a new generation that is coming into their own and Zeresenay Alemseged is one of these who has stumbled on something quite amazing."
National Geographic
Afar region, Ethiopia - Recent
11. Wide view of area
12. Close-up of camels walking through valley
STORYLINE:
Scientists in Ethiopia have discovered a remarkably complete skeleton of a 3-year-old female from the ape-man species represented by "Lucy."
The remains are 3.3 (m) million years old, making them the oldest known skeleton of such a youthful human ancestor.
Senior Editor of the National Geographic Magazine, Chris Sloan, describes the find as very significant - filling in one of the many gaps in the records about hominid babies.
The fossil find includes the complete skull, including an impression of the brain and the lower jaw, all the vertebrae from the neck to just below the torso, all the ribs, both shoulder blades and both collarbones, the right elbow and part of a hand, both knees and much of both shin and thigh bones.
The discovery should fuel a contentious debate about whether this species, which walked upright, also climbed and moved through trees easily like an ape.
Sloan also says the smaller size of the skull, in comparison to a chimp of the same age, could cast light on the development of childhood in infant humans.
University College London scientist Fred Spoor with Zeresenay Alemseged of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, describe the fossil find in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Spoor, professor of evolutionary anatomy described it as a "once-in-a-lifetime find."
The skeleton was discovered in 2000 in northeastern Ethiopia and scientists have spent five painstaking years removing the bones from sandstone, and the job will take years more to complete.
Researches suspect that judging by how well the skeleton was preserved, that it may have come from a body that was quickly buried by sediment in a flood.
The skeleton has been nicknamed "Selam," which means means "peace" in several Ethiopian languages.
The creature was a member of Australopithecus afarensis, which lived in Africa between about 4 million and 3 million years ago.
The most famous afarensis is Lucy, discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, which lived about 100,000 years after the newfound specimen.
Most scientists believe afarensis stood upright and walked on two feet, but they argue about whether it had ape-like agility in trees.
That climbing ability would require anatomical equipment like long arms, and afarensis had arms that dangled down to just above the knees.
The question is whether such features indicate climbing ability or just evolutionary baggage.
In the article, Spoor said while the lower body is very human-like the upper body is ape-like with shoulder blades resemble those of a gorilla rather than a modern human, the neck appearing shorter and thicker and the organ of balance in the inner ear is more ape-like than human.
He said a big question still to be answered is what the foot bones will show when their sandstone casing is removed.
Will there be a grasping big toe like the opposable thumb of a human hand? Such a chimp-like feature would argue for climbing ability.
The work was funded by the National Geographic Society, the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, the Leakey Foundation and the Planck institute.