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.