Throughout the 2,000 plus years of Western World History, it was believed that humans were the product of God’s creation, and about the age of the Bible’s humans. In the 17th century religious scholars dated Creation and Adam and Eve at around 4000 BCE. Modern theology puts the estimate at between 40,000 and 100,000 years (Apologist). As the Western World moved from the dark ages, through the European Renaissance, into the age of enlightenment, and through industrial revolutions in both Great Britain and the United States, emerging scientists discovered tying origins of humans to theology was problematic, particularly because some key scientific discoveries challenged the creationism model. Most notable of these was Charles Darwin. Thus, as Western European scholars developed the scientific method, a growing number of social based sciences emerged. One of these sciences was anthropology, or the study of all aspects of humankind, including zoological origins of the human mammal. …show more content…
It was the lower mandible of a human-like animal that is between 2.80 and 2.75 years old. Seyoum’s team recognized it as a homo fossil because of the well-preserved teeth (hominins are the collected species of humans, including homo, which is the genus modern humans belong to). What is remarkable about this fossil is that its age is close to the 3 million year old age of “Lucy”, the name given to an Australopithecus afarensis partial skeleton found only 12 miles away from the current find. The newly discovered homo fossil may represent the missing link, or that elusive fossil that shows who homo sapiens’ direct ancestor was