Assignment Task:
YouTube Video: Zeresenay Alemseged: Finding the origins of humanity
Selam (meaning "peace") is the fossilized skull and other skeletal remains of a three-year-old Australopithecus afarensis female hominin, whose bones were first found in Dikika, Ethiopia in 2000 by paleoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged and other skeletal remains recovered over the following years. Selam lived 3.3 million years ago and represents the youngest, in age (3 yrs old), of a hominin fossil found to date. She is 120,000 years older than "Lucy" and other specimens of Australopithecus afarensis from Ethiopia and Tanzania.
Q1. What are some of the key hominin characteristics of her skeletal remains that indicates how she lived and behaved?
Q2. Discuss those skeletal markers indicating she was still ape like.
Q3. What do you think about the evidence that Selam belongs on our human family tree and do you believe there is yet more evidence of our past to be uncovered?