化石研究幫我們尋找人類其他近親
Fossil find adds a relative to our family tree
化石研究幫我們尋找人類其他近親
Scientists have discovered fossils of jawbones and teeth from what may be a new species on the human family tree. This distant human relative is long extinct. It lived between 3.3 million and 3.5 million years ago in what's now Ethiopia.
科學家從一種可能是人類的"近親"的新物種上發現了下顎骨和牙齒化石，然而他們早已在地球上絕跡。存在現在的埃塞俄比亞，時間介於330萬年至350萬年前。
Scientists have named the new species Australopithecus deyiremeda. Researchers used a partial upper jaw and two lower jaws (one recovered in two pieces), to describe the species. (Deyiremeda means "close relative" in the local Afar language.)
科學家把這一新物種命名爲Australopithecus deyiremeda（南猿近親屬），研究員利用一個上頜和兩個下頜（下頜被發現時已是兩半）來描述這一物種。（Australopithecus在當地阿爾法語言中意爲"近親屬"）
Yohannes Haile-Selassie of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio and his colleagues shared details of their new find May 28 in Nature.
美國俄亥俄州克里蘭夫自然歷史博物館研究員Yohannes Haile-Selassie和他的同事於5月28號在自然雜誌中分享了他們的這一新發現的細節。
Paleoanthropologists like Haile-Selassie study ancient humans and their ancestors, based on fossils and cultural artifacts or symbols that they left behind. The new discovery suggests two or more species of ancient hominids coexisted in East Africa, Haile-Selassie says. (Hominids include humans and our fossil ancestors.) The new fossils were found near where another species of hominid lived at the same time. That species is best known by a partial skeleton nicknamed Lucy.
與Haile-Selassie一樣的古人類學家利用化石，文化製品或者被遺留下來的文字符號來研究古人類以及他們的祖先，Haile-Selassie表示研究發現有兩種或多種原始人類共同生存於非洲東部（原始人類包括人類和我們的祖先化石。）新化石發現於同時期另一個人類物種居住點附近。最著名的是一個暱稱爲Lucy的只剩部分骨骸的南方古猿。
Species tend to adapt and change - sometimes so much so that they morph into a new species. The emergence of new traits, as part of that adaptation, usually comes in response to changes in the environment, food supply or perhaps climate. "The $64 million question," says Haile-Selassie, "is 'What environmental and ecological factors triggered hominid species diversity between around 4 million and 3 million years ago?'"
物種傾向於適應和改變，有時候大量的變化最終導致他們乾脆進化成一個全新物種。作爲變化的一部分，那些新出現的特點通常會與周圍環境，食物供應，或者氣候等相協調。Haile-Selassie 指出"那個價值6400美元的問題就是‘約400萬和300萬年前導致原始人類物種多樣性的環境和生態因素是什麼’"？
