- New 12 Million Years Old Hominid Found In Spain, With ‘Modern’ Facial Features

[Korn]

It's commonly though that new, important findings about our ancestors pop up every year. This year, two important findings have gotten a lot of publicity: the herbivorous Ida (discussed in another thread), a 47 million year old fossil (found in Germany) that could be one of many missing "links", and Lluc, a 12 million year hominid found in Spain, discussed in various articles (eg this one: Were our earliest hominid ancestors European?).

'Ancestor' isn't a very accurate word, because it basically covers every species and subspecies that led to the 'current version' of humans.

There are some times millions of years between birth date the fossils found. The only thing that becomes more and more clear. Many of the skeletons are incomplete. There's no theory about our ancestors history that everybody will agree in, and if even it such a theory existed, it will be challenged by new findings for decades and centuries to come.

Since every new finding can be seen more or less as a missing link, I doubt that the term 'missing link' has much significance.

[vercimus]

The term "missing link" is completely irrelevant in biology. Television shows and creationists like to use it, exploiting the ignorance of the average person to get better reviews, but like you said, it has no significance: every creature is a "link" as far as evolution goes.

From what I've read, the evidence that homo sapiens evolved in Africa and migrated throughout the world is pretty solid, verified by numerous genetic studies. Also, conjecture about whether a particular fossil is an actual "ancestor" of ours is fairly silly. The percentage of animals that have by chance become fossilized pales in comparison to the number of creatures that have actually existed, so any speculation about ancestry is almost pointless. Relationships are quite easily drawn, but direct ancestry is virtually impossible to pin down.

I think looking at the diets of our prehistoric relatives is a fairly useless endeavor as far as validating veganism is concerned. Humans, according to almost any physiology book, have the gut of an omnivore, regardless of what many vegans on here will say. A vegan diet may be highly beneficial to our health and the most ethical dietary choice, but trying to argue whether something is "natural" or not is pointless. Nothing humans do is by definition "natural," even veganism. Our closest animal relatives are not vegans, but that does not mean we should not be.