This morning I was reading this article about the discovery of a lower jawbone in Ethiopia that the anthropologists are all excited about. It's supposed to be a link between the two pre Homo-sapien versions of humanoids.

So what caused the evolution between these species to occur you ask.....well climate change of course. Science at work again. They do admit that its too soon to say for sure if climate change was responsible for the evolution but it's the prime suspect.....imagine that....

“It’s certainly the case that this new lower jawbone is a good bridge between the primitive Australopithecus afarensis and Homo habilis. It’s on the human lineage, the lineage that leads to us,” Dr Spoor said.

One of the unresolved questions is what environmental conditions led to the evolution of Homo.

Some scientists have suggested that climate change and drought could have sparked the development of the human adaptations needed to survive on savannah grasslands populated by prehistoric antelope and elephants.

“We can see the 2.9 million-year-old aridity signal in the Ledi-Geraru faunal community. But it’s still too soon to say that this means climate change is responsible for the origin of Homo,” said Kay Reede of Arizona State University.
“We need a larger sample of hominid fossils and that’s why we continue to come to the Ledi-Geraru area to search,” Dr Reede said.

So there was a warming period back then too. Wonder if anybody was measuring the rate of ice melt in the polar regions back then?......