A recently-discovered ancient fossil is shedding light on the nature of the “missing link” that served as the last common ancestor of humans and apes.
Though the term has fallen out of favor among scientists, the so-called “missing link” has long played a major part in the public’s imagination as scientists search for fossil evidence of the transitional species between apes and humans and their primitive ancestors.
That evidence still eludes paleontologists, but technology is allowing them a look at a closely-related “monkeylike” creature after a damaged skull was found in a Barcelona landfill.
The skull belonged to Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, an extinct ape that lived some 12 million years ago.
“One of the persistent issues in studies of ape and human evolution is that the fossil record is fragmentary and many specimens are incompletely preserved and/or distorted,” scientists wrote in their findings. “Here, we reconstruct the face of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus and analyze its morphology in an evolutionary framework.”
The team of researchers performed a CT scan of the fossil then reconstructed its cranium digitally. Along with the rest of the skeleton, they were able to draw important conclusions about the species, such as inferring that it was able to maintain an upright posture.
The digital facial reconstruction also allowed scientists to gain a more complete picture of the appearance of the last common ancestor of hominids – the so-called “missing link.”
The findings were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.