The July 2010 cover of the National Geographic has the skull of a female Ardipithecus ramidus which is the oldest known hominid skeleton. For those who aren't familiar about the taxonomy and systematics of humans, Hominids are the great apes who belong to the family Hominidae. These include humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orang utans. The family is further subdivided into Ponginae which contains the Orang utan and the Homininae which contains the chimps, bonobos, gorillas and humans. Gibbons belong to another ape family, the Hylobatidae. Ardipithecus ramidus "Ardi" is the oldest known human ancestor with a fairly complete skeleton that has survived to the present. Estimated at 4.4 MY, the skeleton was unearthed in the Middle Awash in Ethiopia. Before the oldest fossil skeleton was the famous Lucy ( Australopithecus afarensis ) discovered by Donald Johansen in the Awash region of Ethiopia in 1974 and is estimated to have lived 3.2 MYA. The skeleton was nick...
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