Post date: Aug 09, 2012 7:17:49 PM
NATURE - The scientific journal Nature released images of newly-discovered fossils suggested at least three distinct species of human co-existed two million years ago.
Researchers in a desert area of northern Kenya find two million year old fossils suggesting at least three species of humans co-existed.
A research team led by paleontologist Meave Leakey discovered the three fossils, dated between 1.7 million and 2 million years ago, in the desert area of Koobi Fora in northern Kenya. The finding included two lower jaws and a juvenile lower face defined by a characteristically flat palate.
The study, published in the Nature magazine, focused on the species Homo rudolfensis, a human ancestor first identified from a skull in 1972, that also had a characteristically flat head and was unlike other skulls of its time.
The research increasingly challenges the notion that human evolution was linear and instead looks to a more diverse path of human development.