BBC - Earth - The remote lake that tells the story of humanity's birth - 0 views
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It was a skeleton of a young boy, discovered at Lake Turkana in the deserts of northern Kenya. He died when he was about eight years old and his bones sank into the sediments of the lake, where they were preserved for 1.5 million years. He was, and is, the most complete early-human fossil ever discovered
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The discovery reinforced an idea that was emerging at the time: that there was not a single line of early humans, but multiple lineages. It was already known that three other species were living in Africa around the same time: H. habilis, H. erectus and Paranthropus boisei. H. rudolfensis added to this diversity.
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Later finds from Koobi Fora suggest that the three Homo species coexisted between 1.78 and 1.98 million years ago.
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H. erectus are thought to be our direct ancestors. They were the first hominins to migrate out of Africa, spreading into Europe and Asia.
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This may have given H. erectus the drive they needed to become more social.There is some evidence that they shared information and worked in teams.
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In the summer of 2015, researchers announced the discovery of the oldest known stone tools, dating to 3.3 million years ago. It had been assumed that only Homo species could make stone tools, but the tools were older than any known Homo fossils, suggesting that older species like A. afarensis or K. platyops could also make stone tools.
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a 3.2-million-year-old fossil Australopithecus afarensis, nicknamed "Lucy". Lucy's species was immediately hailed as a key contender for our direct ancestor.
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The earliest known Acheulean hand-axes were discovered near Lake Turkana in 2011. They are 1.76 million years old and were probably made by H. erectus.
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Her team found fossils on the western shore of lake that demonstrated there was "diversity at the age of Lucy".
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A. anamensis. This was the oldest species known from Lake Turkana, having lived about four million years ago.
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another new species called Kenyanthropus platyopus, or "flat-faced man". This species lived 3.5 million years ago, when other members of Lucy's species also roamed.
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"the common ancestor" of Homo, and largely killed off the idea that humans evolved on a single line.
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There was a single lineage descending from apes through to Lucy, "and then out pops our immediate ancestors". To her, that did not make
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There was thought to be a "substantial link between the emergence of humans (Homo) and the emergence of technology", says de la Torre, but it now seems this is not necessarily true.
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Lake Turkana has played a pivotal role in our understanding of human evolution. But that is not to say the area was particularly significant for the early humans themselves.
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Lake Turkana was simply an ideal place for fossils to be preserved, says Spoor. "That doesn't mean human evolution doesn't happen everywhere else in Africa."