Under Construction


There have been over 6,000 hominini fossils uncovered. The list below is just a sample.
1/4 of the discoveries below occurred in the last decade.
Bold species are viable candidates for an ancestor of humans.
Name Species Age
mya
Cranial
Cap
cm1
Height
male
Dis-
covery
Location Researcher
1 Toumai Sahelanthropus tchadensis 7-6.4 350 ? 2002 Toros Menalla, Chad Brunet et al.
2   Orrorin tugenensis 6   3-11 2001 Tugen Hills, Kena Brigitte Senut et al.
3   Ardipithecus kadabba 5.2-5.8 400   1997 Middle Awash, Aramis, Ethiopia Haile-Selassie
3 Ardi Ardipithecus ramidus 4.4 400 4-0 1994 Middle Awash, Aramis, Ethiopia White et al.
3   Ardipithecus ramidus 4 400   2005 Gona, Middle Awash, Aramis, Ethiopia  
7   Australopithecus anamensis 4.0     1995 Kanapoi, Kenya M. Leakey et al.
4 Dikika
child
Australopithecus afarensis 3.3 500 4-6 2006 Dikika, Awash Valley, Ethiopia  
4 Lucy
AL-288
Australopithecus afarensis 3.2 450 4-11 1974 Hadar, Awash Valley, Ethiopia Don Johanson, Maurice Taieb, Yves Coppens, Tom Gray
4   Australopithecus afarensis 3.1 450   1982 Hadar, Awash Valley, Ethiopia Don Johanson, Maurice Taieb, Yves Coppens, Tom Gray
    Footprints - (A. afarensis) 3.2     1978 Laetoli, Tanzania Mary Leakey
    Australopithecus afarensis Other sites: Omo, Maka, Fejej and Belohdelie in Ethiopia, and Lothagam in Kenya.
5 Taung Australopithecus africanus 2.5 485   1924 Taung, South Africa Raymond Dart
    Australopithecus africanus Other sites: Sterkfontein (1935), Makapansgat (1948) and Gladysvale (1992)
6 Handy Man Homo habilis 1.8 650 5-0 1960 Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania Louis and Mary Leakey
7   Homo habilis 1.9 750 5-0 1972 Koobi Fora, Kenya  
7 ER 1470 Homo rudolfensis 1.9 775   1972 Koobi Fora, Kenya  
  Homo erectus?2 1.8 600-
700
2001 Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia
  Java Man Homo erectus 1-.700 1000 4-9 - 6-1 1891 Solo River, Java, Indonesia Eugene Dubois
  Peking Man Homo erectus .500-
.300
1030 1929 Zhoukoudian, China Davidson Black
7 Homo erectus 1.7 850   1975 Koobi Fora, Kenya Leakey and Walker
7 Turkana Boy Homo erectus 1.6 850   1985 Nariokotome near Lake Turkana, Kenya Kamoya Kimeu
    Homo erectus 1.2 1000   2008 Gona, Middle Awash, Ethiopia  
    Homo erectus 0.7 1000   2008 Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania  
    Homo erectus Other sites: Sangiran and Trinil in Java, Vietnam, Italy, and Spain
    Paranthropus robustus4 1.5 530 3-9 1938 Kromdraai, South Africa Broom
    Paranthropus boisei4 1.75 530   1959 Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania Louis and Mary Leakey
    Homo heidelbergensis .609 1200 5-2 1908 Mauer, Germany Otto Schoetensack
8   Homo heidelbergensis .275 5-2 1986 Weimar, Germany
8   Homo heidelbergensis .125-
.300
1200 5-2 1921 Kabwe, Zambia
    Homo heidelbergensis Other sites: Ceprano, Italy; Petralona, Greece
  Heidelberg Man Homo Sapiens (archaic) .400-
.700
    1907 Heidelberg, Germany  
8 Rhodesian man Homo Sapiens (archaic) .120-
.200
1280   1921 Kabwe, Zambia
formerly Rhodesia
 
    Homo Sapiens (archaic) .250-
.500
1220   1959 Petralona, Greece  
  Jebel Irhoud Homo Sapiens (modern) .160 1350   1961 Morocco  
  Old Man Homo neanderthalensis .040   1856 Neander Valley, Germany  
  Old Man Homo neanderthalensis .050 1650 5-6 1908 La-Chapelle-aux-Saints, Dorodgone Valley, France  
  hobbit LB-1 Homo Floresiensis .018 417 3-6 2003 Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia  
  cro-Magnon Man Homo Sapiens (modern) .030 1600   1868 Les Eyzies, Dorodgone Valley, France 3  
Chimp: Cranial Capacity 380 cm3; Height (male) 3-4 - 5-6

1. See Cranial Capacity chart at the evolution page.

2. The fossils from Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia contain a mixture of anatomical features from erectus and habilis. They could arguably be considered to belong either to primitive H. erectus (or H. ergaster), or to a new species, Homo georgicus.

3. The Grotte de Lascaux, with the cave paintings, near Montignac, 12 mi NE of the cro-Magnon site at Les Eyzies, is now closed.

Reclassifications:
Australopithecus ramidus was named in 1994 based on fragmentary fossils it was renamed Ardipithecus ramidus in 2005 based on a more complete fossil.

Homo Habilis from the Koobi Fora in the Lake Turkana basin, Kenya named Homo Rudolfensis

4. Zinjanthropus bosei reclassified Australopithecus boisei.
Australopithecus boisei reclassified as Paranthropus boisei
Australopithecus robustus and Paranthropus robustus are used interchangeably.

Ramapithecus, discovered in 1932 in fossil deposits in the Siwalik hills of northern India, was mistakenly advertised as a missing link and classified as a hominid in 1964 but was dismissed in 1979 as some ancient form of orangutans.

Piltdown Man was a famous anthropological hoax. he hoax find consisted of fragments of a skull and jawbone collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex, England. The significance of the specimen remained the subject of controversy until it was exposed in 1953 as a forgery, consisting of the lower jawbone of an orangutan that had been deliberately combined with the skull of a fully developed modern human.

Species Discoveries
Species Type Specimen Named by
Sahelanthropus tchadensis "Toumai" TM 266-01-060-1 Brunet et al. 2002
Orrorin tugenensis BAR 1000'00 Senut et al. 2001
Ardipithecus ramidus ARA-VP 6/1 White et al. 1994
Australopithecus anamensis KP 29281 M. Leakey et al. 1995
Australopithecus afarensis LH 4 Johanson et al. 1978
Australopithecus bahrelghazali KT 12/H1 Brunet et al. 1996
Kenyanthropus platyops KNM-WT 40000 M. Leakey et al. 2001
Australopithecus garhi BOU-VP-12/130 Asfaw et al. 1999
Australopithecus africanus Taung Dart 1925
Australopithecus aethiopicus Omo 18 Arambourg & Coppens 1968
Paranthropus robustus TM 1517 Broom 1938
Paranthropus boisei OH 5 L. Leakey 1959
Homo habilis OH 7 L. Leakey et al. 1964
Source: Introduction to Paleoanthropology/Hominids Early - Wikibooks

Links:
Hominid Species and Prominent Hominid Fossils @ TalkOrigins.org
Human Family Tree | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program
Human Fossil Record map @ fossilized.org
Maps of Africa with archeological sites
Human Evolution at U. of Waikato
List of fossil sites - Wikipedia
List of human evolution fossils - Wikipedia History of Man and Human Migration in History
Lucy's baby
Evolution of Modern Humans: Homo heidelbergensis

last updated 24 Feb 2010