The study by José Braga (CNRS – University of Toulouse) and Jacopo Moggi -Cecchi (University of Florence) and published in Nature Communicationsshows at that time the beginnings of the genus Homo a greater diversity and complexity than we thought.
The bones at the base of this study (two mandibles and a maxilla of infants exhumed a few years ago in Ethiopia and South Africa) “show that, from this stage in the life of the individual, 2.2 million years ago, we were dealing with two different species which developed completely differently“said José Braga on Wednesday at a press conference in Toulouse.
While the jaw of the Basse Ethiopienne de l’Omo, attributed to Homo Habilis, is “very different from that of current human children“, that coming from the South African site of Kromdraai, attributed to Homo Erectus,”is very close to that of human children today“He said, showing casts of these two bones.
Given the young age of the people to whom they belonged, it seems unlikely that morphological differences so marked are due to the influence of their environment (lifestyle or food), as can be the case of adult bones.
“”The comparison of these two jaws tells us that, from two million years, we were dealing with two completely different species, which coexisted somewhere on the African continent“, Homo erectus being more” close to us “than Homo Habilis, continued the French paleoanthropologist.
“”These new discoveries contribute to a more nuanced vision of the origins of the genus Homo“, when the first representatives of the human line separated from other great apes,”suggesting that the roots of humanity are both older, more diverse and more branched than what we thought so far“Summarizes the CNRS in a press release.