article_snippet: Scientists say the fossil, which is known as LD 350-1, is recognisably human but also has more primitive features that suggests it is older than other fossils belonging to the Homo family.
article_snippet: This would make This the common ancestor for modern humans - Homo sapiens - and modern humans - Homo extinct relatives including Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Neanderthals.
article_snippet: Later, chimp and human lineages diverge .
article_snippet: 5.5 million years ago - Ardipithecus, early ‘proto-human’ shares traits with chimps and gorillas . 4 million years ago - Australopithecines appeared.
article_snippet: 2.8 million years ago - LD 350-1 appeared and may be the first of the Homo family .
article_snippet: 1.8 million years ago - Homo ergaster begins to appear in fossil record .
article_snippet: Dr Brian Villmoare, from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, helped lead the fossil hunters, said: 'In spite of a lot of searching, fossils on the Homo lineage older than two million years ago are very rare. '
article_snippet: LD 350-1 reveals that many of the anatomical patterns we see in 2 million-year old Homo were established much earlier in the evolution of the genus. '
article_snippet: At 2.8 million years ago we see relatively evolved Homo traits in combination with other much more primitive anatomical features.'
article_snippet: But exactly how Homo habilis had appeared was unclear due to a huge gap in the fossil record.
article_snippet: Until now the earliest evidence of the existence of the first Homo species was 2.3 million to 2.4 million year old fossils.
article_snippet: Scientists have been searching for decades for earlier examples in an attempt to understand how our ancestors split from other ape-like hominins.
article_snippet: Scientists say the fossil, known as LD 350-1, is recognisably human but also has more primitive features that suggests it is older than other fossils belonging to the Homo family .
article_snippet: Until now, the earliest evidence of the existence of the first Homo species was 2.3 million to 2.4 million-year-old fossils.
article_snippet: Dating of the fossil and the surrounding sediment suggest the fossil is between 2.8 million and 2.75 million years old.
article_snippet: Professor Kaye Reed, also from Arizona State University, said: 'Professor Kaye Reed, also from Arizona State University can see the 2.8 million year aridity signal in the Ledi-Geraru faunal community, but it’s still too soon to say that this means climate change is responsible for the origin of Homo.'
article_snippet: Another study published in the journal Nature has also provided convincing evidence that LD 350-1 was a common human ancestor to the Homo family.
article_snippet: the researchers findings suggest that three different species of early human existed side-by-side between 2.1 million and 1.6 million years ago - Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Homo rudolfensis.
article_snippet: Professor Fred Spoor, a researcher of evolutionary anatomy at University College London and the Max Planck Institute in Germany, said: 'By digitally exploring what Homo habilis really looked like Professor Fred Spoor, a researcher of evolutionary anatomy at University College London and the Max Planck Institute in Germany could infer the nature of Homo habilis ancestor, but no such fossils were known. '
highlights_snippet: The fossil is though to have belonged to  the earliest member of the Homo family .
  
highlights_snippet: The fossil means that the Homo family emerged 400,000 years earlier than believed .
  
highlights_snippet: Scientists think The fossil could represent a common ancestor for all Homo species .
  