Scientists announced on Tuesday in New York the discovery of a 47 million year old human ancestor. For the past two years, an international team of scientists, led by world-renowned Norwegian fossil scientist Dr Jørn Hurum, University of Oslo Natural History Museum, has secretly conducted a detailed forensic analysis of the extraordinary fossil, studying the data to decode humankind’s ancient origins. At 95% complete, Ida is set to revolutionize our understanding of human evolution.
Discovered in Messel Pit, Germany, the fossil is twenty times older than most fossils that explain human evolution. Known as ‘Ida’, the fossil is a transitional species showing characteristics from the very primitive non-human evolutionary line (prosimians, such as lemurs), but she is more related to the human evolutionary line (anthropoids, such as monkeys, apes and humans). This places Ida at the very root of anthropoid evolution – when primates were first developing the features that would evolve into our own.