http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/story-three-teeth-afar
http://en.uniroma1.it/notizie/story-three-teeth-afar
THE STORY OF THREE TEETH FROM AFAR
Posted June 27th, 2014 by SapienzaUniv
Three teeth belonging to Homo Ergaster/Erectus that were found in the Afar
Triangle region in Eritrea are amongst the most ancient archeological finds
that have been analysed via synchrotron micro-tomography and micro-imaging.
The teeth were found in the sites of Uadi Aalad e Mulhuli Amo thanks to the
Buia International Project Excavation Campaign. Sapienza University has
been a Buia Project partner for over ten years.
Notwithstanding the climactic hardships that researchers face in this
region, teams from Sapienza, the National Natural History Museum in Paris,
University of Florence and other international organisations have been
pursuing research in Ethiopia to attempt to bridge the fossil gap that
exists in the history of mankind at one million years ago.
The Sapienza mission, coordinated by Paleo-Anthropologist Alfredo Coppa
from the Department of Environmental Sciences, has contributed to the
discovery of a number of Homo Ergaster fossils that could provide precious
new knowledge on this black hole in the history of mankind.
The Italian team identified the Mulhuli Amo site, only a few kilometres
away from the one where the UA 31 cranium was found, which surprised the
academic world on account of its peculiar characteristics and shed new
light on the history of our evolution. The new site is so rich in Homo
finds that it has been nicknamed the "Amigdala Sanctuary". A report on
these finds has been published in the prestigious *Journal of Human
Evolution*.
The report centres on three teeth: two human incisors found in Uadi Aalad
and a molar found in Mulhuli Amo. A comparison of their structure revealed
a mosaic of primitive characteristics that is very similar to that of more
ancient finds in Eastern Africa (i.e., enamel depth like that of the
Neanderthals) as well as more peculiar characteristics such as the level of
dentin in the pulpar cavity.
A nuclear magnetic resonance test allowed the researchers to view the
micro-markers of the dentin development (Andresen Lines) and allowed them
to estimate the development of Homo roots at a million years ago, a datum
that is coherent with that of modern humanity. This discovery demonstrates
that a dental growth model similar to that of modern humans, already one
million years ago, before the advent of Homo Sapiens.
The analysis of the structure and development of the three teeth was
conducted by the Sapienza Faculty of Physics Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
Laboratory, as well as at the Elettra Synchrotron and the
multi-disciplinary laboratory of the Trieste International Centre for
Theoretical Physics (ICTP).
These important results open up new roads in the study of human evolution
during the lower Pleistocene. Although the fossil record for this period
remain extremely rare, the next paleo-anthropological dig in Eritrea's Afar
zone (scheduled for the end of 2014) could provide further evidence of the
evolutionary relation between Homo Ergaster and Homo Heidelbergensis, the
forefather of modern humanity.
Received on Sat Jun 28 2014 - 21:34:34 EDT