Ledi-Geraru mandible (earliest known Homo)
Mandíbula de Ledi-Geraru (Homo más antiguo conocido)
- Date
- 2013-2015 (mandíbula de c. 2.8 Ma) · confidence high
- Place
- Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia
- Credited to
- Brian Villmoare, Erin DiMaggio, Kaye Reed and team
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
A partial mandible with teeth (LD 350-1) from 2.80-2.75 Ma combining archaic features with those of the genus Homo. It is the oldest fossil attributed to Homo, some 400,000 years older than the next ones.
It is a single mandibular fragment; its assignment to Homo rests on the dentition and is accepted by the authors, but there is no consensus on its species.
What it led to
- pushing the origin of Homo back to the late Pliocene, coinciding with a shift to arid climates
- debate over which australopith species gave rise to Homo
- context for the Gona and Bouri tools