Gap between humans and apes shortened by 400,000 years after new fossil discovery

A new fossil discovery suggests that the first humans emerged 400,000 years earlier than previously thought.

17:42 05 March 2015

A fossil jawbone dating back almost three million years unearthed in Ethiopia had narrowed the evolutionary gap between the first humans and ape like ancestors by 400,000 years it has been stated.

Prior to the latest discovery, the earliest known fossil of the home genus was 2.3 million years old and specimens more than 2.5 million years old have been hard to find and are poorly preserved.

Dr Brian Villmoare, from the University of Nevada, who co-led the fossil hunters, said: "In spite of a lot of searching, fossils on the Homo lineage older than two million years ago are very rare."

His colleague Dr William Kimbel, director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, said: "The Ledi jaw helps narrow the evolutionary gap between Australopithecus and early Homo.

"It's an excellent case of a transitional fossil in a critical time period in human evolution."