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New discoveries of Australopithecus at Maka in Ethiopia

Nature volume 366, pages 261–265 (1993)Cite this article

Abstract

THE taxonomy of Australopithecus afarensis, the oldest known hominid species, has been a matter of debate since its description in 1978 (ref. 1). Some authorities regard all specimens assigned to A. afarensisas belonging to a single taxon2–4whereas others regard the Tanzanian and Ethiopian specimens as each representing a different species5,6. Further controversy surrounds the issues of sexual dimorphism and locomotion among these hominids. Resolution of these problems would shed light on hominid phylogeny in general and on the ancestry of later Australopithecus and Homo. Fossils discovered in the Afar of Ethiopia in 1990 constitute the first major addition to the 3–4 million year (Myr) hominid record since the 1970s. We report here the discovery of new fossils from Maka, dated to 3.4 Myr ago, which provide powerful support for the interpretation of A. afarensis as a single, ecologically diverse, sexually dimorphic, bipedal Pliocene primate species whose known range encompassed Ethiopia and Tanzania.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA

    Tim D. White

  2. Department of Anthropology, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Hongo, Tokyo, 113, Japan

    Gen suwa

  3. Department of Geology, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, 45056, USA

    William K. Hart

  4. Geochronology Center, Institute of Human Origins, 2453 Ridge Road, Berkeley, California, 94709, USA

    Robert C. Walter

  5. EES-1/D462, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 87545, USA

    Giday WoldeGabriel

  6. Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, 29 Vautier Street, 1040, Brussels, Belgium

    Jean de Heinzelin

  7. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA

    J. Desmond Clark

  8. Paleoanthropology Laboratory, PO Box 5717, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Berhane Asfaw

  9. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, USA

    Elisabeth Vrba

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  1. Tim D. White
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White, T., suwa, G., Hart, W. et al. New discoveries of Australopithecus at Maka in Ethiopia. Nature 366, 261–265 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1038/366261a0

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