和訳をお願いしますorz
http://okwave.jp/qa/q7735379.htmlの続きです
In 1992, team member Gen Suwa found the first specimen of A.ramidus near the Ethiopian village of Aramis.
Within two years, enough fossils had been found to produce the first article that named and sketchily described the animal, from a total of 17 fossils.
Some researchers have complained how long it has taken to publish work about the fossils.
But Berhane Asfaw, a co-director of the Middle Awash Project at the Rift Valley Research Service in Addis Ababa, says : “We weren’t interested in how many papers we could publish.
Our interest was in the full chain of information ; that produces the power of the work.”
From more than 135000 vertebrate bone or tooth pieces, the team identified 110 as being from A.ramidus, representing a minimum of 36 individuals.
The fossil come from a sediment layer sandwiched between two layers of volcanic rock known as tuff ― each dated to 4.4 million years ago, says a team led by Giday Wolde Gabriel, of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Fossils in the sediments include plants, pollen, invertebrates and birds, which helped to pinpoint the woodland environment where Ardi lived.
Years of field work uncovered Ardi’s skull, teeth, arms, hands, pelvis, legs and feet ― all of which had to be painstakingly prepared.
Ardi’s skull was recovered crushed in more than 60 pieces that were broken and scattered about.
The bone was poorly fossilized ― so soft that each piece had to be moulded in a silicon rubber cast then digitized by computed tomography scans.
Ardi’s hands and wrists don’t show several distinctive chimp characteristics, such as some larger bones and a tendon ‘shock absorber’ system to withstand bodyweight, says team member Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University in Ohio.
The foot, with its big toe sticking out sideways, would have allowed Ardi to clamber in trees, walking along branches on her palms.
And her teeth show no tusk-like upper canines, which most apes have for weapons or display during conflict.
“This is a major feature showing that Ardi is not in the lineage of modern chimps,” Suwa says.
長いですがよろしくお願いします＾＾；
お礼
ありがとうございます！ またお願いします(^O^)