aking one full skeleton. So it until an extraordinary discovery in Africa in t its importance—or, at t, possible importance—as a precursor species for modern ed.
te valley of Lake turkana (formerly Lake Rudolf) in Kenya is no productive sites for early for a very long time no one to look t edover t mig. A teamco investigate, but at first found note one afternoon KamoyaKimeu, Leakey’s most renoo yield muc t ofrespect for Kimeu’s instincts and to tonis found a nearly complete usskeleton. It nine and tructure,” says tattersall, in a precedent. turkana boy was “very empically one of us.”
Also found at Lake turkana by Kimeu s t clue t us eresting and complext. t of an agonizing condition called aminosis A, old us first of all t us ing meat.
Even more surprising t of gro sign of tenderness inion.
It us skulls contained (or, in tained) a Broca’s area, a region of tal lobe of ted h speech.
C ure. Alan alker t y to enable speec ted about as wellas modern cably Richey could speak.
For a time, it appears, us seems to y.
taken literally, suggests t some members of t about time as, or even slig Africa. tists to suggest t per in Africa at all, but in Asia—o say miraculous, as no possible precursor species side Africa. to appear, as it aneously. And anyill o explain to Africa so quickly.
ternative explanations for us managedto turn up in Asia so soon after its first appearance in Africa. First, a lot of plus-or-minusinggoes into ting of early ual age of t timates or t ty of time for African erects to find to Asia. It is also entirely possible t oldererectus bones a discovery in Africa. In addition, tes could be ogether.
Nos. Some auties don’t believe t turkana finds are us at all. t alturkana skeletons ensive, all otus fossils are inconclusively fragmentary. As tattersall and JeffreyScz note in Extinct of turkana skeleton “couldn’t be compared ed to it because ts knourkanaskeletons, tus and temporaries. S