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Kenyanthropus platyops is a 3.5 to 3.2-million-year-old (Pliocene) hominin fossil discovered in Lake Turkana, Kenya in 1999 by Justus Erus, who was part of Meave Leakey's team. Leakey (2001) proposes that the fossil represents an entirely new hominin species and genus, while others classify it as a separate species of Australopithecus, Australopithecus platyops, and yet others interpret it as an individual of Australopithecus afarensis. Archaeological discoveries in Kenya in 2015, identifying possibly the oldest known evidence of hominin use of tools to date, have indicated that Kenyanthropus platyops may have been the earliest tool-users known
For more information, click here. Or, Try these sources:
- BBC News, 21/05/2015: Oldest stone tools pre-date earliest humans. Can be read here.
- Leakey, M. G., et al (2001). New hominin genus from eastern Africa shows diverse middle Pliocene lineages, Nature, Volume 410, pgs. 433-440
- Lieberman, D. E. (2001). Another face in our family tree, Nature, Volume 410, pgs. 419-420
- Cela-Conde, C. J. and Altaba, C. R. (2002). Multiplying genera vs. moving species: a new proposal for the family Hominidae, South African Journal of Science, Volume 98, pgs. 229-232