Berhane Asfaw
Berhane Asfaw ( born August 22, 1954 in Ethiopia) is an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist. He was known in the art by several finds of early hominids. Berhane Asfaw mainly researches the fossil fields east and west of Awash in the Afar Triangle, and was author of the first description of the species Australopithecus Garhi designated by him. He was also co -author of the first description of Chororapithecus abyssinicus and Ardipithecus.
Career
Berhane Asfaw first studied geology at the Addis Ababa University, where in 1980 he earned a bachelor's degree. Parallel to his studies, he taught 1976/77 chemistry and physics at a high school in Gondar and then worked for the Ethiopian Ministry of Culture Antiques authority associated until 1980. He then continued thanks to a grant from the Leakey Foundation continued his studies at the University of California, Berkeley, which he in 1983 with a master's degree in the subject graduated anthropology. In 1988, he was the first Ethiopian who - was awarded a doctoral degree in anthropology - also in Berkeley, John Desmond Clark and Tim White.
Berhane Asfaw in 1988 returned back to Ethiopia, where he received due to an Exemption permission of the Ethiopian government to explore new promising paleoanthropological excavations; In 1982, the government had announced a moratorium, which should serve to protect the cultural heritage of Ethiopia and therefore exposed to all excavation permits previously issued to foreign paleoanthropologists. From 1990 to 1992 Asfaw was director of the Ethiopian National Museum in which, among other things, Lucy is kept.
1994/95 taught Asfaw as a visiting professor anthropology at Rutgers University, and since 1997 he heads the private sector Rift Valley Research Service in Addis Ababa and is co- director of the Middle Awash Research Project, which was founded in 1981 by John Desmond Clark and since 1990 by Tim White is headed.
Research
Berhane Asfaw works with an expert in paleoanthropology in the Middle Awash Research Project and supports the excavations at the Middle Awash at the same time through the Rift Valley Research Service logistically. Since 1988, he made sure that about a dozen of his compatriots abroad could study anthropology.
About experts but also Asfaw became known after he published the first description in 1999 of a newly discovered Australopithecus species. The type specimen of Australopithecus Garhi is a fragmentary preserved skull with the inventory number BOU-VP-12/130 who discovers on November 20, 1997 by Yohannes Haile - Selassie in the Afar region, west of the modern Awash River on the eastern edge of the Bouri peninsula, been. Get large parts of the frontal bone and the parietal bone and the maxilla with nearly complete dentition. The type specimen is preserved in the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa.
As early as 1994 he was co-author of the first description of Ardipithecus ramidus, an ape from Ethiopia, which is one of the oldest known fossils in the line of development of Hominini. It is believed that Ardipithecus ramidus is one of the direct ancestors of the genus Homo or her at least is very close.
2002 provided the basis of a Asfaw discovered by him, well-preserved skull new evidence that Homo erectus is rightly regarded as the ancestor of Homo sapiens. In 2007 he was co -author of the first description of Chororapithecus abyssinicus, considered the oldest currently known ancestor of gorillas.
The greatest sensation was caused by Berhane Asfaw internationally but in 2003, when he announced the discovery of the hitherto oldest remains of modern man, together with Tim White, Francis Clark Howell and others. The well-preserved skull bones of three individuals were found near the Ethiopian village of Herto and been assigned to the new subspecies Homo sapiens idaltu; their age has been dated to 160000-154000 years. Your report in the journal Nature reported, according to the three skull scratch marks from stone tools, which could point to a cult of the dead. They were also interpreted as further evidence that the cradle of humanity was in Africa.