Contribution of Leakey Family to Our Increased Understanding of Human Evolution

Kenyanthropus platyops (flat-faced man of Kenya). This remarkable discovery, announced in the journal Nature, has profound implications in understanding the origins of mankind. In its front-page story on March 22, 2001, The New York Times wrote that the discovery "threatens to overturn the prevailing view that a single line of descent stretched through the early stages of human ancestry.
field research in Turkana has focused on finding evidence of the very earliest human ancestors, concentrating on sites between 8 and 4 million years old. In 1994, remains of some of the earliest hominids known were discovered at Kanapoi, south west of the lake region. Not only do these finds represent a new species Australopithecus anamensis (a likely ancestor of Australopithecus afarensis, the earliest hominid species previously recognized), but the dating of the find at four million years old has called for revising the accepted timeline for the evolution of hominids.
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