Fossils show ‘weird’ mosaic of chimp-human traits

US: She walked with a knock-kneed gait, with a heel like a chimp but the upright posture of a human, and she may provide the most complete evidence yet of early man's closest ancestor, scientists said Thursday.

Two-million-year-old Australopithecus sediba's awkward strut would eventually send a modern man begging for a knee or hip replacement, but scientists are stunned at how evolution equipped her for both climbing trees and walking.

The latest research on an unprecedented set of fossil bones from South Africa reveal an ancient creature with long arms and primitive shoulders like an ape, but legs that could straighten, dexterous hands and a human-like thumb for precision grip.

“Just a weird, weird combination,” said Jeremy DeSilva of Boston University, lead author of one of the six articles in the US journal Science that describe the most complete set of bones ever found for an early hominid. The latest findings offer more distinctions from the famed hominid Lucy, who was discovered in 1974 and whose species Australopithecus afarensis roamed eastern Africa 3.2 million years ago, experts said.

“What these papers suggest is that sediba probably doesn't come from the East African species that Lucy comes from,” said Lee Berger, who in 2008 discovered the fossil site of Malapa, north of Johannesburg, where excavations are ongoing.

Au. sediba walked in a way never before seen by researchers, with a rib cage and spine that is “very ape-like at the top and human-like at the bottom,” said Berger, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand.

AFP