Some people visit Egypt to explore the pyramids. Others travel to Russia to see the Kremlin.
Hank Wesselman, an anthropology professor at Sierra and American River colleges, has made multiple visits to what may be his favorite destination — Ethiopia.
A researcher, Wesselman has worked with an international team of scientists for the past 11 years in that nation’s Middle Awash Valley, surveying the ancient eroded landscapes of eastern Africa’s Great Rift Valley, seeking answers to the mystery of human origins.
This spring, in a paper published in Nature, a respected British journal, the team said it had found fossil evidence for the evolutionary relationships between the three earliest human species, spanning several million years, but all in one place: Ethiopia’s Middle Awash Valley.
Releasing the results of 10 years of research, the team said the oldest fossils included those from the following species:
• Ardipithecus kadabba, which lived nearly 6 million years ago.
• Its descendant, Ardipithecus ramidus, which lived about 4.4 million years ago,
• Its descendant, Australopithecus anamensis,which lived in the valley between 4 million and 4.2 million years ago.
“These three forms reveal the existence of a succession of species, ancestors and their descendants, within our uniquely human lineage that begins almost 6 million years in the past, culminating with the appearance of our own species, Homo sapiens, 160,000 years ago, and we’ve got all the intermediate links … ,” Wesselman said.
Ardipithecus, the earliest form that appears about 6 million years ago, Wesselman said, is most likely the famous “missing link” that Charles Darwin predicted would eventually be found — the link between apes and humans.
It’s a theory that has found support among a number of other scientists.
He holds a doctorate in anthropology from UC Berkeley and is widely respected by his peers.
He has been criticized by some, however, for mixing science with the supernatural.
Wesselman, who calls himself “a shaman in training,” has written several mystical books with a scientist’s perspective. Some of the books focus on his “out-of-body experiences” that, he says, have shown him a new world dimension.
“Hey, listen, there’s a part of me that still doesn’t know what to do with these experiences,” Wesselman told The Bee in 1995, after he had published “Spiritwalker,” his first book about what he calls his “expanded awareness.”
At Sierra College, Wesselman may be best known for teaching “Magic, Witchcraft and Religion,” an anthropological class that probes religion and magic in the lives of traditional people.
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I took the kids to a lovely holiday gathering today, we had a great time. David and Annette have a fabulous 1700s farmhouse, decorated in a style that I adore. Friends, fireworks, food…it was good fun. Above is an example of the outdoor decor. Keep clicking for more photos. 