Fossils in Kenya Challenges Linear Evolution by:John Noble Wilford
Homo erectus(left) Homo habilis(right)
This article talks about two fossils that were found in Kenya. They were found east of Lake Turkana. The scientists who dated the specimens which were a 1.44 million year old Homo habilis and a 1.55 million year old Homo erectus. They siad that hteir findings challenged the view that these 2 species came one after the other. Instead they believe thayt they lived side by side in Easten Africa for close to a half a million years. If this is so then it means that hablis and erectus must have orginated from a common ancestor. The findings don't change the relationship of erectus to Homo sapiens but it does imply that the species wasnt as human like. The dates of these fossils was determined from volcanic ash deposits. This whole discovery suggests that it is unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis because they were coexisting.
This article relates to what we have been discussing in class about the Rock Cycle. We have been discussing how important rocks are because they give us information about the Earths history. Fossils are also used to provide information about the time period. Fossils can tell us a little bit about what type of enviroment the fossilized organism was living in. These bones found in Kenya are giving us information about the types of species living millions of years ago. In our last clas discussion we also started talking about the diffenrt eras of the Earth. To my understaning these fossils found would be grouped in the Cenozoic Era. In this era dinasoars were taken over by mammals and plants, and later within the era is where fossils of human life began to appear in the rock record. The period that these fossils came from would be the Quaternary period which started about 1.8 million years ago, which includes all human history.
