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Earliest Homo

Nature volume 355, pages 719–722 (1992)Cite this article

Abstract

THE origin of our own genus, Homo, has been tentatively correlated with worldwide climatic cooling documented at about 2.4 Myr (million years) (refs 1–5). It has also been conjectured that members of Homo made the first stone tools, currently dated at 2.6–2.4 Myr (refs 6–8). But fossil specimens clearly attributable to Homo before about 1.9 Myr have been lacking. In 1967 a fossil hominoid temporal bone (KNM-BC1) from the Chemeron Formation of Kenya was described as family Hominidae gen. et sp. indet.9. Although a surface find, its provenance within site JM85 (BPRP site K002) was established and a stratigraphic section provided indicating the specimen's position9. This evidence has been affirmed (see for example refs 10–12) but the exact age of the fossil was never determined, and the absence of suitable comparative hominid material has precluded a more definitive taxonomic assignment. Here we present 40Ar/39Ar age determinations on material from the hominid site indicating an age of 2.4 Myr. In addition, comparative studies allow us to assign KNM-BC1 to the genus Homo, making it the earliest securely known fossil of our own genus found so far.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 06520, USA

    Andrew Hill

  2. Department of Human Anatomy, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, Rootstown, Ohio, 44272, USA

    Steven Ward

  3. Geochronology Centre of the Institute of Human Origins, 2453 Ridge Road, Berkeley, California, 94709, USA

    Alan Deino, Garniss Curtis & Robert Drake

Authors
  1. Andrew Hill
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  2. Steven Ward
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  3. Alan Deino
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  4. Garniss Curtis
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  5. Robert Drake
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Hill, A., Ward, S., Deino, A. et al. Earliest Homo. Nature 355, 719–722 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1038/355719a0

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