New Human Ancestor Species Discovered in Ethiopian Jaw Fossil

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A new species of our human ancestors was found in Ethiopia, Africa.

The newly discovered species named Australopithecus deyiremeda was believed to have lived around 3.3 to 3.5 million years ago.

The fossil evidence made up of the upper and lower jaw was found in Ethiopia's Afar region, less than 22 miles to where Australopithecus afarensis hominin lived.

This suggests that "Lucy" is a relative of the recently unearthed fossil, according to the International Business Times.

The researchers published their findings on Thursday in the journal Nature. They believe that our human ancestry has more species and that up to four different types of early humans may have lived within the same timeline.

"The new species is yet another confirmation that Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, was not the only potential human ancestor species that roamed in what is now the Afar region of Ethiopia during the middle Pliocene," said lead author and project team leader Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie via CMNH.

"Current fossil evidence from the Woranso-Mille study area clearly shows that there were at least two, if not three, early human species living at the same time and in close geographic proximity," Dr. Haile-Selassie added.

The findings are contrary to the widely-believed notion that various human species lived in one period at a time and never in the same time period.

"This new species from Ethiopia takes the ongoing debate on early hominin diversity to another level," Haile-Selassie continued.  "Some of our colleagues are going to be skeptical about this new species, which is not unusual. However, I think it is time that we look into the earlier phases of our evolution with an open mind and carefully examine the currently available fossil evidence rather than immediately dismissing the fossils that do not fit our long-held hypotheses."

Compared to Lucy, the newly identified species had different lower jaw structure and cheek bones, had thicker teeth enamel and smaller upper and lower cheek teeth, according to Stephanie Melillo of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology's Department of Human Evolution, reports Yahoo News.

Dr. Haile-Selassie explained that the new species and Lucy's species that lived in similar timelines would have been competing for food and resources. The evidence in the formation of their teeth suggests that they may not have been rivals after all because of dissimilar diets.

According to National Geographic, scientists have also discovered that human ancestors Kenyanthropus platyops from Kenya and Australopithecus bahrelghazali from Chad lived nearby and within the same time period as well.

"There is now incontrovertible evidence to show that multiple hominins existed contemporaneously in eastern Africa during the Middle Pliocene," the authors noted.