Fossils
The bones includes two partial skulls, four jaws, a legbone, around two hundred teeth and several other parts. The two specimens, Omo 1 and Omo 2, differ in morphological traits. The Omo 2 fossils indicate more archaic traits. Studies of the postcranial remains of Omo I indicate an overall modern human morphology with some primitive features. The fossils were found in a layer of tuff, between a lower, older geologic layer dubbed Member I and a higher, newer layer dubbed Member III. The Omo I and Omo II hominid fossils are from similar stratigraphic levels over Member I.
Because very limited fauna and few stone artefacts were found at the sites when the original Omo remains were discovered, "the reliability of the dates and the provenance of the Kibish hominids" was "repeatedly questioned."
In 2008 new bone remains were discovered from Awoke's Hominid Site (AHS). The AHS fossil's tibia and fibula were unearthed from Member I, the same layer from which the other Omo remains derive.
Read more about this topic: Omo Remains
Famous quotes containing the word fossils:
“In early times, before the floods swept across the world, there was life, albeit odd, as one can see from the fossils of mammoth bones, and there was the regime of Prince Metternich.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“You can hardly convince a man of an error in a life-time, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more to prove that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)