... period (Birkett 1982). The first is provided by the fossil remains of early hominids from the period 3-4.5 million years ago that have been recovered in East Africa in the mid 1970's. The other biochemical evidence, demonstrates a very close genetic relationship between human beings and the living African apes, particularly the chimpanzee. The relationship is apparent from the form of the chromosomes, sequences of DNA, and resemblences in proteins. Evidently our ancestors and those of the gorilla and chimpanzee had a common line for several million years after they separated from what is believed to be our earliest ancestor - the orangutan (Birkett 1982). The earliest known hominid remains dated around 4.4 million years, were discovered in Ethiopia in 1992. They belong to a species call Australopithecus ramidus. The bone remains showed a mixture of chimpanzee-like and later hominid-like features (Fortey 1982). At Handar Valley in Ethiopia a slightly more ...

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