Kenyanthropus platyops
- Date
- 1999 (hallazgo), 2001 (descripción) · confidence high
- Place
- Lomekwi, west of Lake Turkana, Kenya
- Credited to
- Meave Leakey, Justus Erus and colleagues
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
A partial skull (KNM-WT 40000) c. 3.5 Ma old, found by Justus Erus in 1999 and described by Meave Leakey in 2001. With its flat face, it suggested that more than one hominin lineage coexisted with Australopithecus afarensis.
The skull is distorted by fossilisation; many authors consider it a distorted A. afarensis rather than a distinct genus.
What it led to
- a revision of the hominin family tree
- interest in the Lomekwi tools (2015)
- debate over Pliocene hominin diversity