Kenyanthropus
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Kenyanthropus platyops Temporal range: Pliocene |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Primates |
| Family: | Hominidae |
| Tribe: | Hominini |
| Subtribe: | Australopithecina |
| Genus: | (?) Australopithecus or Kenyanthropus |
| Species: | A. platyops or K. platyops |
| Binomial name | |
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†Australopithecus platyops or Kenyanthropus platyops Leakey et al., 2001 |
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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.
The name Kenyanthropus platyops was assigned to this unique species for several reasons: the genus name “Kenyanthropus” was proposed to recognize Kenya since so many different hominins have been discovered there, and those findings have played a significant role in understanding human evolution. The species name “platyops” is derived from two Greek words: platus, which means "flat", and opsis, which means "face", referring to the very flat face of the fossil cranium.
The discovery of these fossils led to the prediction of an early diet-driven adaptive radiation, which is when species diversify to fulfill new ecological niches; this would be attributed to the fact that many new species of Australopithecus and other hominins were being discovered that pre-dated or lived around the same time as Australopithecus afarensis. This indicated that species were much more diverse in the distant past than previously thought. Even with the findings of a skull, their diet is still relatively unknown at this time. Also, no evidence of material culture or anything that would lead to its behavioral adaptations or lifestyle has been discovered at this time.
Several aspects of the environment in which it may have lived have been proposed, basing on faunal comparison tests with other animals that lived during their time. It is believed that they lived in a “mosaic” environment, which had both grassland and some forested areas. This is quite different from their close relative, A. afarensis, which was found in sites such as Laetoli, Tanzania, and Hadar, Ethiopia, where they are believed to have spent a lot of time among trees.
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Wikipedia