Ardipithecus ramidus - Oldest Hominid revealed

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091001/full/news.2009.966.html

Interesting stuff.

Originally posted by Palynka
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091001/full/news.2009.966.html

Interesting stuff.

That is the subject of my 'Ardi' thread. I had an online chat with Ann Gibbons yesterday about it, she wrote a book called ' The earliest Humans" and is now a correspondent at Science mag and they had a live online chat about Ardi. My question was whether these hominids used tools, the answer being as far as they can tell, it was a time a million years before Lucy and they had no stone tools, maybe only sticks and such that modern chimps use.

Originally posted by sonhouse
That is the subject of my 'Ardi' thread. I had an online chat with Ann Gibbons yesterday about it, she wrote a book called ' The earliest Humans" and is now a correspondent at Science mag and they had a live online chat about Ardi. My question was whether these hominids used tools, the answer being as far as they can tell, it was a time a million years before Lucy and they had no stone tools, maybe only sticks and such that modern chimps use.

Yes, I noticed you didn't notice my (earlier) thread. 😛

Still, fascinating news. Your question about tools was interesting. The only ones that used tools were the homo habilis, right? But these are already homo, not just hominid. If Ardi used tools, we'd probably have an early homo, not just hominid!

(actually, it should be apparent that I have no clue as to what makes a species homo exactly 😵)