Lothagam , site of northern paleoanthropological excavations Kenya southwest of the Turkana Sees (Rudolfsee ), known for a piece Jaw found there in 1967, which appears to be one of the oldest known hominin (member of the human lineage) fossils. The fossil is too fragmentary to be identified with certainty, but the roots of its teeth and its general proportions resemble those of later hominins. It may have belonged to a member of Ardipithecus (4.4 to 5.8 million years ago), a genus found at Aramis was found in the Afar region of Ethiopia and the hominin Australopithecus is similar and possibly related to . Like Ardipithecus and unlike other early hominins, the Lothagam specimen has a thin Enamel on the molars.
Britannica Quiz Exploring Africa:Fact or Fiction? Though this continent is teeming with natural resources and diverse wildlife, how much do you really know about Africa? Sort these facts from Cairo to Khartoum in this African odyssey. The Lothagam site is rich in animal fossils. More than 1,000 specimens have been recovered from deposits between 5.5 and 8 million years ago. Numerous well-preserved mammalian (including monkey) skulls and limb bones have been recovered from the site, but completely missing Notes on the human evolution , except for the fragmentary jaw and two pieces of tooth in the upper layers of the sedimentary deposits. Analysis of the fossil animals shows that the area had a large and slow-moving river with surrounding forest, but 5.5 million years ago there was open grassland nearby.