Homo habilis essay

4million years ago. Homo habilis fossils were discovered in 1959 at Olduvai Gorge in the northern part of Tanzania indicted in, “Fifty years after Homo habilis,” (Wood, 2014). The species has many features that are evolutionary intermediate between the more primitive Australopithecus and more evolved Homo species. This work is a summary of; the features of the Homo habilis, the environment it lived in, social behavior of the Homo habilis, the geographical regions it lived in, its diet, the location of the fossils and the anthropologists who discovered them, and its evolutionary relation to modern humans. The species special morphology that differentiated it from other hominids was its cranium capacity. Dr. Leakey discovered different parts including a mandible with parietal bones of a clavicle mandible and foot.

The thin parietal bones were immature but complete enough to measure cranial cavity to 645ml as found in, “The Skull, Endocasts and Teeth of the Homo habilis,” (Howell & Clark, 1991). They made an inference that a mature hominid therefore had a capacity of 675ml. The clear canine overlap is indicated because the canine had a small wear facet. The remains of the cranial included four skeletons and several fragmented long bones mostly of the femora. One of them, the ER3735 included skull parts which looked like those of the ER1813 and some parts of a leg and an arm. Therefore the East and South Africa was the cradle home for the Homo habilis as most of the fossils were discovered there. The ecology that the Homo habilis inhabited in Africa was tropical forest as indicated in “The Austrarian Museum,” (Dorey, 2010).

However, fruits grew scarce forcing the species to look for other nutritional sources. Scanning the bones with the aid of an electronic microscope, marks that were made on the bones are visible although they do not provide enough evidence that the animals were hunted down. However the Olduvai sites are still not a clear indicator to show that the Homo habilis resided where the bones accumulated. This is because the areas were dangerous and had a huge population of predators. Anthropologists also present a case that indicate presence of a language among the hominid because of the Oldowan artifacts. Therefore the Homo habilis social behavior was hunting for game meat using crude tools. The fossil remains were discovered by Dr. leaky and Mary Leaky in Olduvai Gorge and the Lake Turkana basin in 1959.