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Africa Feature: Landmark discovery of fossils in Kenya stirs debate of linear evolution |
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08:00, August 10, 2007 |
A Kenyan researcher has made a landmark fossil discovery that is likely to stir fresh debate on evolution of "early man", officials said on Thursday.
The discovery of two new fossils by Dr. Frederick Manthi, a researcher with National Museum of Kenya (NMK), challenges the widely-held view about human ancestry.
Scientists who dated and analyzed the specimens-- a 1.44- million-year-old Homo habilis and a 1.55-million-year-old Homo erectus found in 2000 -- said their findings challenged the conventional view that these species evolved one after the other.
Instead, they apparently lived side by side in eastern Africa for almost half a million years.
Speaking at a press conference in Nairobi, Manthi said the discovery will cast fresh light on a little understood and important period of human prehistory at the dawn of the homo genus.
"I expect that this new discovery will stir up fresh debate and discussions on human origin. The co-existence of the two species makes it unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis," Manthi told journalists in Nairobi.
The fossils were found east of Lake Turkana in Kenya and it took years to prepare the specimens for study and to be sure of the identification of the species, Manthi said.
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