EK Response Week 13

The NY Times article,"Lost in a Million-Year Gap, Solid Clues to Human Origins," discuses the uncertainties of the Homo sapiens ancestors. There is a lot of information missing from when human's first ancestor developed. Scientists are looking back millions of years to find fossils to fill the million year gap that is missing to solve the human ancestry puzzle.
Scientist estimate that 2.6 million years ago there were hominids and then Homo came but no one is sure exactly when. Habilis was the first of the species but no one knows where to place it in time an part of the reason is that the fossils of this time were poorly perserved. They have found tools that were from 2.5 million years ago but no one knows if they were are from the earliest form of hominids. Then there there was jaw from 2.3 million years ago that was found has also been shrouded in uncertainty. Some scientists believe habilis and erectus could have evolved together and that would explain part of the missing gap and others think the habilis may be several species. To support the idea that they were both around at the same time scientists believe some habilis may have left Africa for some time only to come back as Homo and live with other habilis.
There is a lot of mystery surrounding human evolution that this makes one question what species did they really evolve from and what type of evolution have other species and the earth gone through? I imagine the earth has evolves more than will ever know and scientist will keep discovering new things about our past that changes the way we view ourselves and the world. Also, a lot of land has been explored which only makes up a small part of the earth one can only wonder what mysteries the oceans hold.