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crantzTurkana Boy, Lake Turkana, Kenya
The Nariokotome skeleton comes from the west side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. The Turkana boy is remarkable for his long, slender body, which is within the modern size range. It is an example of Homo erectus or Homo ergaster, the first-known human species to migrate out of Africa.
The Nariokotome specimen, KNM WT-15000 (Kenya National Museums, West Turkana, specimen 15000), is an almost cmplete skeleton of a teenage male human. Much paleoanthropological exploration has focused on Lake Turkana since the 1960s. Research west of the Omo River in Ethiopia in the 1960s had led to the development of the idea of paleoanthropology: the interdisciplinary study of human evolution. Subsequent fieldwork, east of Lake Turkana, resulted in the discovery of many fossil humans, most notably the KNW ER-1470 skull (note that the fossils from the east side are cataloged as ER or East Rudolf, the former name of the lake).
NARIOKOTOME - A FOSSIL HOMO ERECTUS
The West Turkana specimen was found in 1984 at the Nariokotome III site on the south bank of the Nariokotome River. It was eroding out of lake sediments above the Otoke Tuff, a volcanic ash dated by the potassium-argon method to 1.65 million years ago. It represented most of the body of an invidual not quite fully grown. Most of the long bones or limbs were made up of separate parts; the joint ends were not yet fused to the shaft as they would be in an adult. Not all the adult teeth had yet come through. Using these skeletal measures of growth, the boy appeared to be between 10 and 15 years old. His body shape and proportions were tall and slim, as predicted by Bergmann's and Allen's rule for tropical mammals. This would allow his body temperature to remain cool even in a hot savanna environment. His height was calculated to be 5 ft 3 in (160 cm); if he had been an adult, he would have been around 6 ft (1.8 m) tall. KNM WT-15000 is the earliest specimen within the size range of living humans. But his brain size, estimated to be 54 cu in (880 cc), is still smaller than ours (averaging around 82.4 cu in/1,350 cc).
All these features represent a quantum leap over all earlier humans. The skeleton of Turkana Boy is assigned either to Homo erectus or Homo ergaster. The former is the first Asian species of human, while Homo ergaster is used by paleontologists who view the African specimens as a different species from the roughly contemporaneous specimens found in Asia. But, however one classifies the Nariokotome skeleton, the specimen is probably an early member of the species that moved into Eurasia around 1.7 million years ago. The migration event is popularly known as Out of Africa 1.
Book: The World Encyclopedia of Archaeology
Page: 67
The Nariokotome skeleton comes from the west side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. The Turkana boy is remarkable for his long, slender body, which is within the modern size range. It is an example of Homo erectus or Homo ergaster, the first-known human species to migrate out of Africa.
The Nariokotome specimen, KNM WT-15000 (Kenya National Museums, West Turkana, specimen 15000), is an almost cmplete skeleton of a teenage male human. Much paleoanthropological exploration has focused on Lake Turkana since the 1960s. Research west of the Omo River in Ethiopia in the 1960s had led to the development of the idea of paleoanthropology: the interdisciplinary study of human evolution. Subsequent fieldwork, east of Lake Turkana, resulted in the discovery of many fossil humans, most notably the KNW ER-1470 skull (note that the fossils from the east side are cataloged as ER or East Rudolf, the former name of the lake).
NARIOKOTOME - A FOSSIL HOMO ERECTUS
The West Turkana specimen was found in 1984 at the Nariokotome III site on the south bank of the Nariokotome River. It was eroding out of lake sediments above the Otoke Tuff, a volcanic ash dated by the potassium-argon method to 1.65 million years ago. It represented most of the body of an invidual not quite fully grown. Most of the long bones or limbs were made up of separate parts; the joint ends were not yet fused to the shaft as they would be in an adult. Not all the adult teeth had yet come through. Using these skeletal measures of growth, the boy appeared to be between 10 and 15 years old. His body shape and proportions were tall and slim, as predicted by Bergmann's and Allen's rule for tropical mammals. This would allow his body temperature to remain cool even in a hot savanna environment. His height was calculated to be 5 ft 3 in (160 cm); if he had been an adult, he would have been around 6 ft (1.8 m) tall. KNM WT-15000 is the earliest specimen within the size range of living humans. But his brain size, estimated to be 54 cu in (880 cc), is still smaller than ours (averaging around 82.4 cu in/1,350 cc).
All these features represent a quantum leap over all earlier humans. The skeleton of Turkana Boy is assigned either to Homo erectus or Homo ergaster. The former is the first Asian species of human, while Homo ergaster is used by paleontologists who view the African specimens as a different species from the roughly contemporaneous specimens found in Asia. But, however one classifies the Nariokotome skeleton, the specimen is probably an early member of the species that moved into Eurasia around 1.7 million years ago. The migration event is popularly known as Out of Africa 1.
Book: The World Encyclopedia of Archaeology
Page: 67
