File talk:BrainTree.pdf

Ardipithecus Ramidus had a bipedal hip bone and foramen magnum. Tim White and others think that the lumbar vertibrae variability suggest that a common ape ancestor might have been bipedal, but their reasoning does not extend to any bones beyond the lumbar vertibrae. (Personally I find their case to be quite weak, but that's besides the point: their reasoning is that there is yet another ancestor, it was pseudo-bipedal, then gave rise to Ardipithecus which picked up these extra bipedal attributes, then gave rise to our lineage.) What that means is that Ramidus must be ancestral to us or a cousin of our ancestral lineage. I.e., it is *not* ancestral to Chimpanzees -- it must be closer to humans.

Selam is also not a species -- its just a nick-name for an Australopithecus afarensis. Qed (talk) 16:07, 22 March 2012 (UTC)