Description and Analysis of the Ardipithecus Ramidus Postcranium

这项由美国国家科学基金会资助的工作将集中在最大限度地提高知识，这些知识可以从一个新的和非常重要的收集， 埃塞俄比亚阿法尔地区的早期原始人类化石（Aramis）。这些人类 祖先是有史以来最古老的（440万年）， 与其他已知的人类祖先不同，他们被分配到 新属新种地猿Ardipithecus ramidus。 除了拥有极其 原始的牙齿和颌骨，这个新物种在生态学上也是不寻常的， 因为它代表了第一批生活在 以封闭的林地和森林物种为主。 他们的颅骨和牙齿 解剖学使它们与人类祖先中现存的猿类最为相似 物种，他们的研究有望揭示重要的新的年龄和 人类和猿类祖先分离的原因， 基本上是人类崛起的开始我们的研究有两个主要目标： 1)对这些新人类的肢骨进行了明确的描述性分析 化石; 2）对这些遗骸进行功能和比较分析 以及其他现存的和化石灵长类动物。

The work supported by this NSF grant will concentrate on maximizing the knowledge which can be gained from a new and highly important collection of early hominid fossils from the Afar region of Ethiopia (Aramis). These human ancestors are the most ancient ever recovered (4.4 million years old) and are so unlike any other known human ancestors that they have been assigned to the new genus and species Ardipithecus ramidus. In addition to having extremely primitive teeth and jaws, this new species is also ecologically unusual, because it represents the first human ancestors which lived in environments dominated by closed woodland and forest species. Their cranial and dental anatomy make them the most similar to living apes of any human ancestral species, and their study promises to shed important new light on the age and causes of the separation of human and ape ancestors, an event which essentially initiated the rise of humans. Our research has two primary goals: 1) A definitive descriptive analysis of the limb bones of these new hominid fossils; 2) Functional and comparative analysis of these remains to ourselves and to other living and fossil primates.