Dikika

DRP is a paleoanthropological site on the Awash River in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia. DRP became known worldwide after Zeresenay Alemseged had found there in 2000, the skeleton of a well-preserved hominin. This fossil with the scientific name DIK 1-1 is considered the most complete specimen of this species so far Australopithecus afarensis; it is called by its discoverer also Selam ( "Peace ").

In the vicinity of DRP and the somewhat more northerly locality Hadar numerous other fossils have been found from the shape of the circle Hominini: including the famous Lucy and Ardi ( Ardipithecus ramidus, a female ). Have been recovered in this area also the oldest known, about 2.6 million and 2.5 million year old stone tools. In the summer of 2010 an international research team led by Zeresenay Alemseged of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and Shannon McPherron of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Nature about the discovery of 3.3 million years reported old scratch and cut marks on fossil bones of animals, showing amongst other things, that already scratched Australopithecus afarensis meat from ribs and leg bones. Therefore, the Afar Triangle is one of the cradles of civilization.

The Pliocene sediments at DRP have been studied for several years, among others, by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

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