Description and Analysis of the Ardipithecus Ramidus Postcranium

这项由国家科学基金会赠款支持的工作将集中于最大限度地利用从埃塞俄比亚阿法尔地区(Aramis)收集的新的、非常重要的早期原始人化石中获得的知识。这些人类祖先是有史以来发现的最古老的(440万年前)，与任何其他已知的人类祖先如此不同，以至于他们被归入新的属和种Ardipithecus ramidus。除了拥有极其原始的牙齿和颌骨，这种新物种在生态上也是不同寻常的，因为它代表了生活在以封闭的林地和森林物种为主的环境中的第一个人类祖先。它们的头骨和牙齿解剖结构使它们与任何人类祖先物种中的现存类人猿最相似，他们的研究有望为人类和类人猿祖先分离的时代和原因提供重要的新线索，这一事件基本上开启了人类的崛起。我们的研究有两个主要目标：1)对这些新的原始人化石的肢骨进行明确的描述性分析；2)对这些遗骸与我们自己以及其他活着的和化石的灵长类动物进行功能和比较分析。

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.