Uncle George! Is that you?

Scientists yesterday announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor in Ethiopia’s harsh Afar desert.

The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.

The skeleton belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound female nicknamed ‘Ardi.’

The fossil puts to rest the notion that a chimpanzee-like missing link would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree.

More via Our Strange World.

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