Resumen de Can one skull rejig our family tree?
The 1.8-million-year-old specimen is the earliest intact skull of a human ancestor ever found, combining a small braincase with a long face and large teeth. The find confirms that the species it belonged to, Homo erectus, was far more variable in appearance than humans thought--so much so that its discoverers argue that the human family tree should be pruned of many of its species. The component parts of the skull were unearthed at the Dmanisi archaeological site in southern Georgia by a team led by David Lordkipanidze of the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi. The lower jaw was found in 2000, and the cranium turned up in 2000. Since then, the team has managed to reconstruct and date the skull.
