Orrorin tugenensis
- Date
- 2000 · confidence high
- Place
- Lukeino Formation, Tugen Hills, Baringo, Kenya
- Credited to
- Brigitte Senut and Martin Pickford
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Finds by Senut and Pickford in the Tugen Hills: femora and teeth some 6 Ma old. The femora suggest very early bipedalism, which would make it the oldest hominin after Sahelanthropus.
It is debated whether it is a hominin, an ancestor of living apes or a side lineage; its bipedalism rests on femora whose interpretation is controversial.
What it led to
- debate on the beginnings of bipedalism
- pushing the age of hominins beyond 6 Ma
- studies of the Lukeino Formation