Fossils found in Kenya hint at distant cousins to our ancestors - New York Daily News

Fred Spoor/National Geographic, Nature via

This undated handout image provided by National Geographic and Nature shows a computer enhanced image of a lower jaw, shown as a photographic reconstruction, and the cranium, based on a computed tomography scan of of he KNM-ER 1470 cranium, discovered in 1972, combined with the new lower jaw KNM-ER 60000.

WASHINGTON â€" Our family tree may have sprouted some long-lost branches going back nearly 2 million years. A famous paleontology family has found fossils that they think confirm their theory that there are two additional pre-human species besides the one that eventually led to modern humans.

A team led by Meave Leakey, daughter-in-law of famed scientist Louis Leakey, found facial bones from one creature and jawbones from two others in Kenya. That led the researchers to conclude that man's early ancestor had plenty of human-like company from other species.

These wouldn't be Homo erectus, believed to be our direct ancestor. They would be more like very distant cousins, who when you go back even longer in time, shared an ancient common ancestor, one scientist said.

But other experts in human evolution aren't convinced by what they say is a leap to large conclusions based on limited evidence. It's the continuation of a long-running squabble in anthropology about the earliest members of our own genus, or class, called Homo -an increasingly messy family history. And much of it stems from a controversial discovery that the Leakeys made 40 years ago.

In their new findings, the Leakey team says that none of their newest fossil discoveries match erectus, so they had to be from another flat-faced relatively large species with big teeth.

The new specimens have "a really distinct profile" and thus they are "something very different," said Meave Leakey, describing the study published online Wednesday in Nature.

Fred Spoor/National Geographic, Nature via

 

Meave Leakey carefully excavates the new face KNM-ER 62000 near Koobi Fora, northern Kenya. A famous family of paleontologists says newly found fossils confirm their controversial theory that the human family tree may have sprouted some long-lost branches going back nearly 2 million years.

What these new bones did match was an old fossil that Meave and her husband Richard helped find in 1972 that was baffling. That skull, called 1470, just didn't fit with Homo erectus, the Leakeys contended. They said it was too flat-faced with a non-jutting jaw. They initially said it was well more than 2.5 million years old in a dating mistake that was later seized upon by creationists as evidence against evolution because it indicated how scientists can make dating mistakes. It turned out to be 2 million years old.

For the past 40 years, the scientific question has been whether 1470 was a freak mutation of erectus or something new. For many years, the Leakeys have maintained that the male skull known as 1470 showed that there were more than one species of ancient hominids, but other scientists said it wasn't enough proof.