Ethiopia: Team of Scientists Discovers 3.3 Mln-Old Fossil Fossil Named" Selam" to Reflect Its Ethiopian Origin

Dagnachew Teklu
Addis Ababa

A 3.3 million years old fossil of a baby girl have been discovered by a team of scientists, team leader Ethiopian Scientist Dr. Zeresenay Alemseged announced.

Briefing reporters on the historic discovery at the Ethiopian National Museum on Wednesday, Zeresenay said the monumental discovery was the result of a rigorous and rentless field research and laboratory investigation of an international and multidisciplinary paleoanthrropological research team- a team he leads.
The team of scientists led by Dr. Zeresenay is based the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany.

"Here we describe a well-preserved 3.3 million year Juvenile partial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis discovered in the Dikika research area of the Ethiopia. The skull of the approximately three year old presumed female shows that most features diagnostic of the species are evident even at this early stage of development," Dr. Zeresenay said.

The scientist said. the fossil was found in the Afar regional state, located some 1,000 KM of the capital Addis Ababa, where various other fossils were found in the past years.

He added that it was the first time ever that a discovery of a girl as young as three years old was made in Ethiopa.

Alemseged further indicated that the fossil of the 3 years old girl, Selam was a most complete skeleton of a juvenile human ancestor ever found in the world.

"Though a baby, she is providing us with a unique account of our past," he told reporters at the press conference.

"Her completeness, antiquity, and age at death combined make this finding unprecedented in the history of paleoanthropology, and open many new researcher avenues to investigate the childhood of early human ancestors."

As a result of these huge and global research works carried out all over the world so far, 14 human and pre-human fossils have been uncovered out of which the 10 are discovered from Ethiopia, it was learnt.

"Today we are here to officially declare the new and extraordinary scientific discovery of a three year old girl died 3.3 million years ago from a research site located in the north-eastern Ethiopia called Dikika.This new finding has great contribution in addressing the question of our origin and advancing the frontier of science in this regard," Ethiopian Minister of Culture and tourism said during the launching of the discovery.

Ethiopia: 'Lucy' to Go to USA

Ethiopia: 'Lucy' to Go to USA
By Dagnachew Teklu
Addis Ababa

'Lucy' aka 'Dinknesh', the famed paleontological discovery of human fossils dating back to 3.5 million years, will be traveling to the US, officials disclosed.

Ethiopian Culture and Tourism officials said Lucy's fossil will be taken to a museum in the US as part of the new national campaign recently launched to promote tourism Minister of Culture and Tourism, Ambassador Mohammed Dirir, said the Lucy's exact date of departure was not yet decided but preparations are underway to finalize the necessary preparation.
According to Dirir, the country's share of receipts from global tourism remains meager.

He said the government's objective was to change this reality and place the country among the top 10 African destinations by 2020.

Lucy was found 24th of November 1974, at the site of Hadar, the Afar Regional State by archeologists Donald Johansson and Tom Gray on the.

The couple had taken a Land Rover out that day to map in another locality. After a long, hot morning of mapping and surveying for fossils, they decided to head back to the vehicle.
On their way back, Johansson suggested taking an alternate route back to the Land Rover, through a nearby gully.

Within moments, he spotted a right proximal ulna (forearm bone) and quickly identified it as a hominid. Shortly thereafter, he saw an occipital (skull) bone, then a femur, some ribs, a pelvis, and the lower jaw.

Two weeks later, after many hours of excavation, screening, and sorting, several hundred fragments of bone had been recovered, representing 40% of a single hominid skeleton.