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Tim D. White (born August 24, 1950) is an American paleoanthropologist and Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.He is best known for leading the team which discovered Ardi, the type specimen of Ardipithecus ramidus, a 4.4 million-year-old likely human ancestor.
Ardi (ARA-VP-6/500) is the designation of the fossilized skeletal remains of an Ardipithecus ramidus, thought to be an early human-like female anthropoid 4.4 million years old. It is the most complete early hominid specimen, with most of the skull, teeth, pelvis, hands and feet, [ 1 ] more complete than the previously known Australopithecus ...
Ardipithecus ramidus is a species of australopithecine from the Afar region of Early Pliocene Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago (mya). A. ramidus , unlike modern hominids , has adaptations for both walking on two legs ( bipedality ) and life in the trees ( arboreality ).
Ardipithecus ramidus was discovered by Tim White in 1992 at Aarmis in Middle Awash. The initial assemblage was made up of 13 dental fragments, some cranial fragments, some postcranial fragments, including from the radius and ulna. Since, over 100 total specimens have been discovered from 36 individuals.
The first fossil found was dated to 4.4 million years ago on the basis of its stratigraphic position between two volcanic strata: the basal Gaala Tuff Complex (G.A.T.C.) and the Daam Aatu Basaltic Tuff (D.A.B.T.). [7] The name Ardipithecus ramidus stems mostly from the Afar language, in which Ardi means "ground/floor" and ramid means "root".
The find was overshadowed by Tim D. White's 1995 discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus, which pushed back the fossil record to . In 2000, Martin Pickford and Brigitte Senut discovered, in the Tugen Hills of Kenya, a 6-million-year-old bipedal hominin which they named Orrorin tugenensis.
Dated to 3.7 million years ago, they were the oldest known evidence of hominin bipedalism at that time. Subsequently, older Ardipithecus ramidus fossils were found with features that suggest bipedalism. With the footprints there were other discoveries excavated at Laetoli including Hominina and animal skeletal remains.
He has been instrumental in the discoveries of the type specimen (principal reference fossil) for Australopithecus garhi and Ardipithecus kadabba (both discovered in 1997), and he has also found fossil specimens of Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus afarensis, and species of Homo including Homo erectus, as well as Homo sapiens.