| Catalogno. | MRD-VP-1/1 |
|---|---|
| Common name | MRD |
| Species | Australopithecus anamensis |
| Age | 3.8 million years |
| Place discovered | Woranso-Mille,Afar Region, Ethiopia |
| Date discovered | February 10, 2016 |
| Discovered by | Ali Bereino |
MRD-VP-1/1 is a fossilizedcranium of the speciesAustralopithecus anamensis.[1] The first piece of MRD, the upper jaw, was found by Ali Bereino, a localAfar worker, on February 10, 2016, at Miro Dora,Mille district of theAfar Region, in present-day Ethiopia.[2]
This first cranium of A. anamensis was identified byYohannes Haile-Selassie of theCleveland Museum of Natural History, Stephanie Melillo of theMax Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and their team members of the Woranso-Mille project in 2019.[3] Prior to this, A. anamensis was known mainly from jaws and teeth.[3]
Sedimentologist Beverly Saylor and her team members atCase Western Reserve University in Ohio dated the nearby minerals in layers of volcanic rock and determined the age of MRD as being around 3.8 million years old.[4]
According to the study, the MRD cranium and other fossils from the Afar, show that A. anamensis andA. afarensis co-existed for approximately 100,000 years.[5]
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