Homo Rudolfensis - 2012 Fossil Find

2012 Fossil Find

In August 2012, a team led by Meave Leakey published an academic paper in Nature announcing three additional H. rudolfensis fossils from northern Kenya had been found: two jawbones with teeth and a face. The face (fossil KNM-ER 62000) was of a juvenile, but had features in common with KNM-ER 1470, suggesting the latter skull's uniqueness is due to being a separate species, rather than a large male H. habilis. Team member Fred Spoor described the face as "incredibly flat", with a straight line from the eye socket to the incisor tooth. The jawbones, which appeared to match KNM-ER 1470 and KNM-ER 62000, were also shorter and more rectangular than known H. habilis specimens.

The fossils were dated to about two million years ago, being contemporaneous with H. habilis. According to Leakey et al., "the new fossils confirm the presence of two contemporary species of early Homo, in addition to Homo erectus, in the early Pleistocene of eastern Africa". Lee Rogers Berger, however, called the argument "weak", and proposed the finds be compared to other possibilities, such as Australopithecus africanus and Australopithecus sediba. Tim D. White of the University of California also challenged the findings, asking, "How can practitioners in this field possibly expect to be able to accurately identify fossil species based upon a few teeth, jaws, and lower faces in light of what we know about the great variation found among different individuals in a single living species?" Leakey replied, "I would challenge Tim to find any primate in which you would see the same degrees of variation as those that we are seeing between our new fossils and KNM-ER 1802". KNM-ER 1802 is a lower-jaw fossil that is thought to be of a Homo rudolfensis. Given the difference between this fossil and the ones found in 2012, Leakey has proposed that the fossil is not of a H. rudolfensis, but possibly, of a H. habilis. Bernard Wood considers that it is "perfectly possible" that there were interactions between these different species.

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