This document provides instructions for an assignment to research and write about an important fossil discovery of a hominin or ancient primate made after 2000. Students are asked to choose a fossil, research it using at least 3 sources, and write a minimum 800-word report summarizing the fossil's name and discovery details, description, dating techniques, important traits, impact on evolution knowledge, and placement on a phylogeny/family tree. The report should utilize both popular science and scientific sources, and be submitted by the due date as a Word or PDF document with a word count.

1. Assignment
As you learned in your
Explorations
reading this week, fossils are historically the most important
line of evidence about our distant past, but they can be
extremely difficult to find. Important fossil discoveries like Ida
still make headlines in magazines and newspapers for good
reason. As the fossil record grows, so too does our
understanding of the past and important new discoveries can
rewrite our understanding of the evolutionary past.
For this assignment, you are to find an important fossil
discovery that paleontologists or paleoanthropologists have
made after the year 2000.
Your fossil must be a hominin or an ancient primate
. You can think of the story of
Darwinius massilae
above as a model for your assignment, though I was also trying
to illustrate some important concepts for this module, so you do
not need to be quite as thorough as I was.
Start by googling important fossil discoveries and find one you
think is interesting and important. Remember, your
fossil must be either a hominin or an ancient
primate
and it must have been
discovered since 2000
. After you have chosen a fossil discovery, cover the following
in a
minimum of 800 words:

2. The fossil's scientific name and popular name (if it has one)
A short account of the discovery (when, where, by whom, etc)
A
description of the fossil
remains, including the
techniques used to date it
A
photo
of the fossil specimen(s)
A description of the i
mportant traits the fossil shows
and their
relationship to the fossil record and living species
An assessment of the impact of the discovery on our knowledge
of evolution (including debate about the
fossil's taxonomic place
)
An
image of a phylogeny
/family tree showing where (at least some) scholars have placed
your fossil discovery
A list of your sources
Your assignment must be written by you, in your own words.
This doesn't mean you can't borrow terminology or even phrases
from your sources-- that's fine. Like my

3. Darwinius
description,
your source list should include both popular science sources and
scientific articles
. My main popular science article was from
National Geographic
and was written for 6-12th graders. National Geographic is a
trustworthy internet source, but I still double-checked my facts
against the much more thorough Wikipedia page on
Darwinius.
This assignment is designed for you to learn about new
discoveries through popular media, including the internet, so in
this case using Wiki for this assignment is fine. While
Wikipedia pages vary in quality and detail, they are often useful
and for fossil discoveries can help lead you to additional
sources, including academic ones.
Your assignment should utilize at least 3 sources, but more is
fine.
Please type up your assignment, double space the document and
submit it as a PDF or Word document
with a total word count at the bottom of your post that looks
like this:
[891 Words]
Note that this assignment is due by
Thursday, September 17 by 11 pm.
Good luck, enjoy the assignment, and let me know if you have
any questions.
Sources

4. Darwinius. (n.d.). In
Wikipedia
. Retrieved March 27, 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinius (Links to an external
site.)
Franzen, J. L.; Gingerich, P. D.; Habersetzer, J.; Hurum, J. H.;
Von Koenigswald, W.; Smith, B. H. (2009). J., Hawks (ed.).
Complete primate skeleton from the Middle Eocene of Messel in
Germany: morphology and paleobiology (Links to an external
site.)
.
PLoS ONE
.
4
(5): e5723.
Schons, Mary. 2011. Who Was Ida? October 24. National
Geographic.
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/who-was-ida/ (Links
to an external site.)
Seiffert, Erik R.; Jonathan M. G. Perry; Elwyn L. Simons; Doug
M. Boyer (22 October 2009). "Convergent evolution of
anthropoid-like adaptations in Eocene adapiform primates".
Nature
. Nature Publishing Group.
461
(7267): 1118–1121.
Bibcode (Links to an external site.)
:
2009Natur.461.1118S
.
doi (Links to an external site.)
:

5. 10.1038/nature08429
.
PMID (Links to an external site.)
19847263
.
Williams, Blythe A., Richard F. Kay, E. Christopher Kirk, and
Callum F. Ross. 2010.
Darwinius masillae Is a European Middle Eocene stem
Strepsirrhine—a reply to Franzen et al. Journal of Human
Evolution
59: 567–573.