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The Middle Awash region of northeastern Ethiopia is located in the Horn of Africa. Named for the Awash River that runs through it, the Middle Awash is part of a unique geological feature, the Afar Depression, a vast desert with active volcanoes and major fissures and fractures of the earth's crust. It is one of the hottest places on Earth. The area is unique because of its geology--tectonic activity here has created special conditions in which lake and river sediments repeatedly trap and bury... |
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The Middle Awash project team worked for 3 years to excavate the 'Ardi' skeleton at a place called Aramis in the Afar Rift of Ethiopia. The recovery effort involved many dozens of scientists from around the world. When the skeleton recovery effort finally ended in 1997, the team had recovered more than 125 pieces of one individual - a 4.4 million-year-old female, the oldest hominid skeleton yet found. It belonged to a new creature that the scientists classified as Ardipithecus ramidus.... |
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A fossil has more value if it can be accurately dated. Scientists use several methods to determine the ages of specimens: |
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For years, scholars thought that hominids evolved in more open habitats, like the savannas of Africa. However, an analysis of the paleoenvironment shows that the earliest hominids evolved in lush, humid woodlands inhabited by all sorts of creatures including monkeys, birds, antelope and numerous rodents. To gather this data, the research team repeatedly returned to the field and recovered approximately 150,000 plant and animal fossils. |