VCU professor uncovers fossils of undiscovered human ancestor

Skye Hathaway, Contributing Writer

VCU associate professor of anthropology Amy Rector and her team of scientists discovered a new species of prehistoric human in Ethiopia, according to VCU.

The discovery began in 2018 when Rector and her team found nine fossilized teeth at a site in Ethiopia called Lady Guareu, she said. They assumed the fossils belonged to a prehistoric human of the genus Australopithecus, a known species of hominin. 

Rector and her team analyzed the fossils and concluded that the teeth did not belong to any known species of human ancestor, she said.​​ 

“Over years of analysis, what we found is that the individual, that species, is not consistent with any other species,” Rector said. “So it is something new. It’s a member of a genus that came before us, but it is something new.”

The team published a paper with the results of their findings two weeks ago.

Rector said she was shocked people wanted them to name the species once they published the study. She wants to find more fossils belonging to the species before giving it a name. 

“We found nine teeth from one individual, and that’s awesome and amazing, and you know, that’s even unique to find that many teeth from one individual,” Rector said. “But we like to have a little bit more of an individual before we want to give it a name.”

After screening for further fossils, the team brought in teeth expert Lucas Delezene, associate professor and vice chair of anthropology at the University of Arkansas.

Delezene said he contrasted the new fossils with preexisting ones to identify which species they belonged to. 

“We went trait by trait comparing the fossils from Lady Guareu to other fossils that have been published in museums around Africa,” Delezene said. “So literally going lump and bump and groove on a tooth, comparing one tooth to another.” 

Delezene said when he put the teeth together, they belonged to the same prehistoric human. 

“If you imagine a tooth like the outline of a kind of oval, as you get older, that oval becomes less ovoid and it’s kind of squared off where it touches the tooth in front of it. But what that does is it allows you to literally fit the teeth back together to see that they literally match,” Delezene said.

Brian Villmoare, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Las Vegas, began writing the fossil descriptions once the team identified that they belonged to a new species. 

The team began writing the paper in 2022, but it was not published until two weeks ago. Villmoare said the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ethiopia delayed the paper’s release.

“It takes a long time to pore over it. We get it back, then we rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. Then we send it back out again and then they return it again,” Villmoare said. “So after the second revisions they said ‘yes that’s enough adjustments to publish.’” 

Villmoare said that teams often wait to publish their findings, but his group releases them as soon as possible. 

“We prefer to get things out quickly,” Villmoare said. “There are groups that sit on fossils for decades and we are determined not to be like that.”