Oldest Skull.A battered 3.5-million-year-old skull found near Kenya's Lake Turkana Lake Turkana (tər-kăn'ə, tʊr-kä'nə), formerly known as Lake Rudolf, is a lake in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, with its far northern end crossing into Ethiopia. has scientists hotly debating the place of a fossil called Lucy in the human family tree. "Until this find, Lucy's species--Australopithecus afarensis--was considered the only possible human ancestor in the middle Pliocene [3.5 million years ago] era," says legendary fossil hunter Meave Leakey at the National Museums of Kenya The National Museums of Kenya (NMK) is a governmental body maintaining museums and monuments in Kenya. It also practices scientific research. Its headquarters and the National Museum (Nairobi museum) are located near Uhuru Highway between Central Business District and Westlands in : "Now we have two possible candidates." One became extinct; the other kept evolving. "But I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. which one," Leakey says. The new skull dates from the same era as Lucy, but belongs to a previously unknown species. Unlike Lucy, who has a protruding pro·trude v. pro·trud·ed, pro·trud·ing, pro·trudes v.tr. To push or thrust outward. v.intr. To jut out; project. See Synonyms at bulge. ape-like jaw, with big teeth for chewing grasses and roots, the new skull has a flat, humanlike face with small teeth for eating fruits and insects. Leaky named it, Kenyanthropus platyops, meaning "the flat-faced human from Kenya." |
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