Not Your Father's Line of Descent

This is very comforting. We don't have to be the same species of the war criminal variety, I am postulating from finding that fossil evidence shows the lines might not be so straight after all. I am comforted to think that my branch is the one with feelings for my fellow man, the one with ideals of making the world better for those to follow after me. I don't have to be just another grasping snarling life form motivated by greed.

Surprising research based on two African fossils suggests our family tree is more like a wayward bush with stubby branches, challenging what had been common thinking on how early humans evolved.

The discovery by Meave Leakey, a member of a famous family of paleontologists, shows that two species of early human ancestors lived at the same time in Kenya. That pokes holes in the chief theory of man's early evolution — that one of those species evolved from the other.

And it further discredits that iconic illustration of human evolution that begins with a knuckle-dragging ape and ends with a briefcase-carrying man.

The old theory is that the first and oldest species in our family tree, Homo habilis, evolved into Homo erectus, which then became human, Homo sapiens. But Leakey's find suggests those two earlier species lived side-by-side about 1.5 million years ago in parts of Kenya for at least half a million years. She and her research colleagues report the discovery in a paper published in Thursday's journal Nature.

The paper is based on fossilized bones found in 2000. The complete skull of Homo erectus was found within walking distance of an upper jaw of Homo habilis, and both dated from the same general time period. That makes it unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis, researchers said.

I can take a great deal of hope from these findings. A lack of moral sense and of a feeling of compassion does not have to be part of my heritage. I am homo/femina of quite another sort than horribilis. Now can I have a separate world where we can all work toward a living condition that works for everyone? Without the pitchforks?