Early 'Homo' Genus Beings
On Shelf #3: On this shelf are display the skulls and a jaw of the earliest member of our own genus Homo. Where their contemporaries, the robust australopithecines, developed massive jaws, teeth and muscles for chewing, the members of the genus Homo, exhibit a reduced chewing apparatus but the beginnings of a brain expansion that would continue through time. The skull on the left, you will see KNM-ER 1813 (Homo habilis [found by Kamoya Kimeu in Koobi Fora, Kenya in 1973; ~1.9 Mya]), the OH7 jaw (also Homo habilis [nicknamed “Johnny’s Child”, this fossil jaw was in 1980 by Jonathan and Mary Leakey in Olduvai Gorge; ~1.75 Mya]) and KNM-ER1470 (Homo rudolfensis [found by Bernard Ngeneo in 1972 in Koobi Fora; ~1.9 Mya]).
• The brain size of these early members of Homo is rather modest, and they were made members of the genus because they were initially found with what have come to be called Oldowan tools. The species name “habilis” refers to their having been toolmakers. New discoveries have shown that species that were clearly in the australopithecine group were also using Oldowan-style tools, thus blurring the line between Homo and the australopithecines.
