Everything about Kenyanthropus Platyops totally explained
Kenyanthropus platyops is a 3.5 to 3.2 million year old (
Pliocene)
extinct hominin species that was discovered in
Lake Turkana,
Kenya in
1999 by Justus Erus, who was part of
Meave Leakey's team. The
fossil found features a broad flat face with a toe bone that suggests it probably walked upright. Teeth are
intermediate between typical
human and typical
ape forms.
Kenyanthropus platyops, which means "
Flat faced man of Kenya", is the only described species in the genus. However, if some
paleoanthropologists are correct,
Kenyanthropus may not even represent a valid taxon, as the specimen (KNM-WT 40000) is so distorted by matrix-filled cracks that meaningful morphologic characteristics are next to impossible to assess with confidence. It may simply be a specimen of
Australopithecus afarensis, which is known from the same time period and geographic area. Other researches speculate that the flatter face position of the rough cranium is similar to KNM ER 1470 "
Homo rudolfensis" and suspect it to be closer to the genus
Homo, perhaps being a direct ancestor. However the debate hasn't been concluded and the species remains an enigma.
The bones discovered at the site included more than 30
skull and
tooth fragments in a stratum dated to between 3.5 and 3.2 million years ago. The fossil was named the Flat Faced Man of Kenya, or
Kenyanthropus platyops, by Dr. Meave Leakey, of the National Museums of Kenya.
Dr. Leakey believes that it belongs to an entirely new
genus of ancestors, and is the oldest "reasonably complete"
cranium found so far. Humans were once thought to have evolved from only one member of
Australopithecus afarensis, the
species made famous by the fossil
Lucy. But now it seems Lucy may have been sharing the woods and grass plains of prehistoric
Africa with a rival.
Until more recent discoveries were made, it seemed as if the
evolution of man might be “special” since there appeared to be only one single line of
hominids leading from the most primitive to Modern Man of today. And since
evolution normally proceeds in branches, multiplying as each branch divides,
hominid evolution seemed for a while to be the one exception. Now, with the discovery of
Kenyanthropus, the picture looks more “normal”.
At present anthropologists aren’t sure how many branches there might have been 3 million years ago. Branches may have gone extinct that we haven’t yet found representatives for; but such fossils could be discovered at any time.
When learning of the discovery, Dr. Daniel Lieberman, an anthropologist at George Washington University expressed his opinion that between 3.5 and 2 million years ago there were several human-like species, each of which were well adapted to life in their particular environments. Also that, like that of many other mammalian groups, humans evolved through a series of complex radiations, known as "adaptive radiation".
The Kenyanthropus fossil has a small earhole, like those of
chimpanzees. It also shares many features of other primitive hominids, such as a small
brain, but it also has striking differences, including high cheek bones, and a flat plane beneath its
nose bone, which gives it a flat
face.
Further Information
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