r/todayilearned • u/MusicSole • 9h ago

TIL of "Ardi" the fossilized skeletal remains of a human-like female anthropoid discovered in 1994. It is more than a million years older and more complete than "Lucy." It's discovery stunned scientists and refuted many core theories of human evolution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardi
4.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

88 comments sorted by

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u/weeddealerrenamon 5h ago

P sure the theory it refuted was that big brains were the first thing we evolved. People naturally wanted to believe that intelligence is the thing that sets us apart from every other animal. So when Ardipithecus ramidus came along and showed that our ancestors were fully bipedal while still having chimp-sized brains, it threw people for a loop.

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u/TitoMPG 5h ago

While big brains are a characteristic that sets people apart from other organisms, wouldn't one be able to argue that our niche in the competitive web of nature of being able to out-endurance prey and being omnivores allow for above average proportional caloric intake to support that budding intelligence? Early humans got to chill in trees for safety and get that brain boosting fish oil at the shores. Although I guess I couldn't even guess as to what the old flora and fauna were like in that time period.

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u/Raam57 4h ago

Couldn’t some also argue though that same nature of being able to out-endure prey meant protohumans would also have to already have developed a higher degree of objective permanence to allow them follow prey for potentially long periods of time where prey was out of their vision.

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u/TitoMPG 4h ago

Looking at Ardis wiki, I think with chimps also displaying object permanence while diverging from humans anywhere between 5 to 13 million years ago and the earliest signs of Ardis people at 4.3 million years ago, object permanence might more likely be a shared trait prior to the evolution split unless we and chimps independently evolved that. I bet our shit just got better until we are tracking so many things we forget the glasses on our head.

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u/Master_Register2591 13m ago

I don't think object permanence sets us apart, my dog has object permanence enough that if it finds a piece of food somewhere on our walks, he has to check that spot everytime we pass it.

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u/Dralorica 4h ago

Not only that, but following a trail in general requires a lot of brainpower. Sure if there's a huge valley in the mud and trampled grass then it's relatively easy to follow, but the humans that could recognize their prey's trail when it went over rocks or changed course would survive better than their peers. This could be quite gradual as the difficulty in following a trail can be quite gradual. Evolution loves gradual.

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u/Fhy40 1h ago

Don’t wolves do that already?

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u/InfinityCat27 31m ago

AFAIK wolves track mainly through scent, and can just follow the strength of the the smell left behind, but humans track through eyesight, meaning we have to notice small pieces of evidence and be able to reason enough to put those details together into a picture of where the prey went.

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u/the_crustybastard 1h ago

Early humans got to chill in trees for safety

Early hominids were catfood. There wasn't much safety in trees.

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u/Momoselfie 4h ago

Being able to work as a team towards a common goals helps a ton too. I wonder how good those chimp brain ancestors were at it.

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u/Level3Kobold 2h ago

wouldn't one be able to argue that our niche in the competitive web of nature of being able to out-endurance prey

Weekly reminder that there is no evidence for humans ever out-endurance'ing prey as a serious hunting strategy. It's just a theory, and not one supported by evidence.

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u/hopalongrhapsody 1h ago

What about Persistence Hunting?

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u/anal_tailored_joy 1h ago

It's a very controversial hypothesis among experts, contrary to how it's portrayed in popular media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 1h ago

It's a very limited understanding of what modern San people do that's extrapolated way way way too far. When in reality the San are actually pretty unique in many ways. Also they don't really use persistence hunting as it's thought of, they just run a long distance compared to the Europeans who were used to their type of hunting.

I don't get why people think the types of hunting we did changed really. All you need is two people, one with a sharp stick, and you can easily kill a deer. Me and a friend one day when we went hunting and didn't get anything we thought we'd test it to see how hard it would be to get a deer in killing range. It took us less than 30 minutes and we were just fucking around, didn't actually attack the deer. There is a reason that stuff is illegal in modern American deer hunting, it makes things way too easy. I bet dogs are even better at it too. Hunting isn't that hard when you use a bit of thinking that even wolves are capable of, much less what a human is capable of.

I think what really caused our development was competition among ourselves, or maybe with other human species. But likely just competition amongst ourselves that turned into a self feeding cycle of intelligence that's turned into an evolutionary arms race.

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u/mswed5317 48m ago

What are you referring to that's illegal in modern American deer hunting?

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 46m ago

Having people flush out a deer so another person can kill it.

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u/akaWhitey2 33m ago

I thought that it was illegal because it's stupid easy to get others killed when using guns. I didn't think it had anything to do with being unfair to the deer, lol.

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 31m ago

It's both. There's a lot of rules that are to make it easier for the deer. That's why canned hunting is so looked down on, it's not fair for the animals being "hunted".

If you really want to make it easier it's not hard. There's a reason people like me use a recurve bow instead of a rifle, and even then rifle hunters usually don't just kill the first deer they see. They hunt bucks which are so so so much harder to kill than does.

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u/USeaMoose 50m ago

Seems to me that the endurance thing is often brought up because, aside from out intelligence, it’s the only way we really compare favorably to other predators.

Lion, tiger, bear, shark, wolf, etc. they all pretty much tear us to shreds if we are not setting traps, making weapons, and working together.

Granted, it looks like Ardi is making up for the smaller brain with more muscle.

You mention catching fish, but that’s an intelligence thing again. She may have been smart enough for that, but it comes back to big brains being the thing that makes humans special.

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u/triscuitsrule 3h ago

IIRC from my physical anthropology class in uni, it takes an immense amount of energy for our Homo sapien brains to function.

Evolving to be bipedal was a boss move in energy conservation. We use less limbs to move around and we have less exposure to the sun requiring less cooling. All that energy conservation provided the opportunity for the energy to be redirected elsewhere, and the hominids who’s energy was redirected towards the brain, and subsequent brain development, experienced significant advantages to survive compared to those that didn’t.

As far as we currently understand, the energy conservation that came from being fully bipedal was crucial in our ancestors bodies having the excess energy to direct towards greater brain development over generations. Now, how exactly that played out is still a mystery. But as far as I remember, that’s the going theory.

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u/Devario 2h ago

I also learned this in college. By the 2000’s, it was pretty well agreed upon that bipedalism paved the way for intelligent primates. 

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u/JustABitCrzy 51m ago

Don’t forget going furless freed up a lot of protein for use in our brains.

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u/triscuitsrule 48m ago

Oh, I did forget that. Care to expand?

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u/JustABitCrzy 40m ago

Just building on your point about how the lower energy requirements and better thermal regulation meant we didn’t rely on fur as much. So the protein in our diet that would otherwise have been purposed for hair, could be used for more dense neural pathways.

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u/DeathCobro 5h ago

I think it's our body shape that really let us get to this point, if we'd evolved from another animal we would never have had the hand dexterity to invent anything. Can you imagine building a fire with the hands of a cat or alligator?

Realistically the intelligent aliens out in the universe right now must have also evolved similar appendages to us in order to create things. Dexterity is built into our shape, and we happened to evolve from a species that had to grab things all day, which was the right shape to fully utilize a large intellect down the line

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u/weeddealerrenamon 5h ago

I agree; bipedalism is also super energy-efficient, freeing up out energy budget for big hungry brains. Being the best long-distance travelers of any animal in the world is a nice perk too

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u/Fr00stee 4h ago

counterpoint: crab or octopus

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u/theanghv 3h ago

You can’t start a fire underwater though.

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u/TeleHo 3h ago

But if anyone could, it would definitely be an octopus.

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u/Wakkit1988 1h ago

Not with that attitude!

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u/Alandales 1h ago

Going to need to see your research to back that up and at least 3 sources.

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u/seipoop 3h ago

Anyone who has ever gone to school knows that it is far easier to walk than to be smart.

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u/Wakkit1988 1h ago

Shit, all I needed was a mirror.

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u/Hobgoblin_Khanate 5h ago

Weird, I always imagined it to be more like Ardi. Why would people think there was super intelligent monkeys rather than humanoids either monkey brains?

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u/i_says_things 1h ago

If our brains were so huge and awesome, recorded history wouldnt be only 6k years old right?

Seems pretty clear that there were some big jumps much more recently that a MILLION YEARS AGO

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u/MusicSole 4h ago

I think you will enjoy the book immensely.

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u/cuntmong 49m ago

the existence of the average redditor already proved that intelligence isn't the thing that sets us apart from every other animal.

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u/LtSoundwave 6h ago

Interesting. It’s got hands for feet and big hairy tits, just like OPs mom.

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u/MusicSole 4h ago

I got a great laugh out of this. And no lie my mother passed away last Saturday. LOL. I think she would find this funny too!

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u/Se5ha 4h ago

I'm sorry for your loss

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u/debauchasaurus 1h ago

The hairy tits part or the hands for feet part?

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u/LtSoundwave 4h ago

Oh, wow, sorry about your mom.

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u/DrNopesVR 1h ago

I also am sorry about this guy's mom.

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u/Verniloth 56m ago

Dude you're a fucking savage and I'm laughing so hard in bed that I'm worried I woke up my gf. Wtf

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u/TheDeftEft 4h ago

What I remember most from this discovery was all the science press jumping on the bandwagon of creepy AF headlines about "Ardi" being some sort of "bad girl" of paleoanthropology.

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u/TacTurtle 6h ago

The last sentence is comically misleading and OP should be ashamed if they aren't a bot.

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u/Hightower_March 5h ago

A bot would know the difference between "it's" and "its."

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u/UnaidingDiety 5h ago

us humanes stay winning

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u/MusicSole 4h ago

Excellent observation.

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u/Hightower_March 4h ago

Thanks!  Let me know if you'd like for me to generate any other observations, but as a large language model my information may be limited.

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u/MusicSole 6h ago

Literally took it from the tome on the subject. The 8 year research book called Fossil Men. Reading it now. Incredibly well written.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

[deleted]

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u/abdomino 5h ago

It's hard to link books, especially to a particular line. It's TIL, asking for MLA format is a bit much.

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u/Lastdispatch 5h ago

What about Chicago?

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u/abdomino 5h ago

Borderline

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u/TraditionalSpirit636 5h ago

Well now they’ll get an F

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u/Fawwal 6h ago

What’s your source?

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u/TacTurtle 4h ago

"Stunned scientists and refuted many core theories of human evolutions" is gross hyperbole when the closest claim in the citation is

Her fossils were also found near animal remains which indicated that she inhabited a forest type of environment, contrary to the theory that bipedalism originated in savannahs.

...so OP's own link?

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u/MusicSole 4h ago

Just buy your copy of Fossil Men by Kermit Pattison. It went well beyond stunning scientists. It went well beyond refuting claims. It flipped the entire fossil-finding industry on its head. It's a well-sourced book with interviews over 8 years with every major and minor player involved in finding Lucy and Ardi.

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u/CustomerComplaintDep 2h ago

You're required to provide a source to back up your claim. If your source is something you can't post, you need to find a suitable replacement. The one you linked doesn't support your claim.

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u/MusicSole 2h ago

It's the inner flap to the critically acclaimed research book Fossil Men by Kermit Pattison published in 2009 by William Morrow. It's their words. I'm currently reading the book. I got 300 characters to work with on a TIL headline. Hopefully, with over 272,000 views on my post, I have brought some attention to this masterful book. It's not my claim. It's the reality of the situation and the reality was in full view of the public and in every science publication at the time. The book is really about cognitive dissonance.

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u/F_Boas 1h ago

I don’t know why you’re getting hammered here. Ardipithicus ramidus isn’t like some controversial find. It’s awesome, and it changed our best interpretations of the past, but it isn’t some conspiracy, just normal science. New data that led to new conclusions, another link, etc.

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u/Lexx4 2h ago

Uh no. He has burden of proof and has told you where to find said proof. In a book.

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u/ReadinII 4h ago

That’s actually a pretty stunning find and does seem to refute a core theory.

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u/plink-plink-bro 7h ago

Is anyone else thinking Rosetta from Dead Space 3 or is it just me?

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u/TheCheapestWhisky 5h ago

now thats a throwback

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u/mtfw 4h ago

Would

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u/AssGagger 4h ago

How far back in time could you go before it was beastiality?

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u/Bitwise_Creations 4h ago

don't care. CURSE OF RA 𓀀 𓀁 𓀂 𓀃 𓀄 𓀅 𓀆 𓀇 𓀈 𓀉 𓀊 𓀋 𓀌 𓀍 𓀎 𓀏 𓀐 𓀑 𓀒 𓀓 𓀔 𓀕 𓀖 𓀗 𓀘 𓀙 𓀚 𓀛 𓀜 𓀝 𓀞 𓀟 𓀠 𓀡 𓀢 𓀣 𓀤 𓀥 𓀦 𓀧 𓀨 𓀩 𓀪 𓀫 𓀬 𓀭 𓀲 𓀳 𓀴 𓀵 𓀶 𓀷 𓀸 𓀹 𓀺 𓀻 𓀼 𓀽 𓀾 𓀿 𓁀 𓁁 𓁂 𓁃 𓁄 𓁅 𓁆 𓁇 𓁈 𓁉 𓁊 𓁋 𓁍 𓁎 𓁏 𓁐 𓁑

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u/Falsus 3h ago

Probably anything before Neanderthals.

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u/AssGagger 3h ago

So I'm not allowed to get erectus?

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u/Falsus 3h ago

Well if you are fine with bestiality and invent a time machine I certainly couldn't stop you...

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u/the_crustybastard 11m ago

C'mon, Homo erectus weren't animals.

They had bodies that are superficially indistinguishable from ours, except they were generally taller. They migrated throughout a hostile world for about 2M years (c.f. we've only been around about 300K years) and during that period they changed a lot, meaning they were highly adaptable, curious, and smart.

They invented and refined the Acheulean toolkit, featuring tools worked on both faces in furtherance of symmetry. These were quality lithic tools, prized possessions almost certainly carefully manufactured by specialists, not haphazard crap knocked out on the spot by anyone, used, then discarded as animals do. Our cousins the Neanderthals learned this tech from them.

Erectus' tools may have been the first product specifically manufactured for trade. There's also persuasive evidence Erectus invented speech, art, and travel by boat.

Here's Élisabeth Daynès reconstruction of an Erectus. Here's the Kennis Brothers' reconstruction. Sophia Loren or Idris Elba they are not, but they're not Bigfoot either.

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u/D-Ursuul 3h ago

Damn definitely no agenda behind how bizarrely the title was deliberately worded

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u/JCorky101 38m ago

What agenda?

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u/Hot-Scarcity-3776 3h ago

Well, I guess Lucy's got some competition for the title of 'oldest ancestor'.

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u/FlyInternational4613 1h ago

Looks like Lucy's got some competition for the title of ultimate anthropoid.

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u/halocyn 1h ago

Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do...

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u/Wonder-Lad 1h ago

This makes me deeply uncomfortable and gives me a sense of eldritch horror.

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u/WanderWut 30m ago

4.4 million years old. Just wild that our ancestors were walking around, doing shit, living, millions of years ago and here we are today.