OLD BONES KOOBI FORA - ORIGIN OF MAN

Quick Fact

In October 2000 the an expedition, composed of Kenyan and French scientists, discovered 13 fossil fragments  in the rocks of the Tugen hills. These rocks are known to be six million years old. The Orrorin tugenensis is yet to be recognised by the scientific community, and when it is it will become the earliest example of bipedalism yet discovered. At the moment Ardipithicus ramidus, dated to around 4.5  million years ago holds this title.

Turkana

Kenya’s North is desert country- hot, parched and broken by volcanic activity, where ancient blackened lava flows and endless thorn trees stretch from horizon to horizon. 


The history and cultures of the North- the Samburu, Pokot, Gabbra, Borana and many more are written upon the soil of this trackless land- and travelling through this area is a great education in itself. Both the East and West shores of the Lake each offer unique areas of interest.

Kenya is endowed with the richest pre-historic fossil heritage dating over 100 Million years ago, back into the dinosaur age. The Lake Turkana eco-system is amongst Kenya’s six World Heritage Sites. The lake is the world’s largest desert as well as alkaline lake containing the largest Nile crocodile population.

Situated along the Eastern shores of Lake Turkana is Koobi Fora Site and Museum, a World Heritage Site also popularly known as the Cradle of Mankind. On site are mainly extinct fossils like the crocodile, giraffe and tortoise at least four times larger than today’s. It is where evidence of man's earliest settlement was found. In 1984, a team of archeologists discovered the bones of the world famous "Turkana Boy" which is dated 1.8 million years old. This area is a ridge of sedimentary rock where researchers have found more than 10,000 fossils, both human and other hominids, since 1968.

On the western shore of Lake Turkana there was a recent discovery  of  what is known as Kenyanthropus platyops (the flat faced man of Kenya) . The strata from which the fossil skull was  removed is dated to between 3.5 and 3.2 million years ago. It is claimed that Kenyanthropus platyops represents a completely new branch of the family tree.

scientists have also discovered a  metacarpal bone west of Lake Turkana. The fossil was found near the sites where the earliest Acheulean tools— named for St. Acheul in France where tools from this culture were first discovered in 1847 — were unearthed. The Acheulean artifacts were the first known complex stone tools, rough hand axes and cleavers that first appeared some 1.8 million years ago.

The hand-bone fossil is about 1.42 million years old. The researchers suspect it belonged to the extinct human species Homo erectus, the earliest undisputed predecessor of modern humans. The fossil was found near a winding river, which often deposits things like fossils.

Something you did not know

Lake Turkana has a geologic history that favored the preservation of fossils. Scientists suggest that the lake as it appears today has only been around for the past 200,000 years. The current environment around Lake Turkana is very dry. Over the course of time, though, the area has seen many changes. The climate of the region was once more humid, which may have been favorable for early humans and hominids to have flourished there.

The area has also been dominated by different landscapes over the span of Turkana’s history—flood plains, forests and grasslands, an active volcano, and lakes.