In recent years archaeologists have found several fossilized skulls of man-like creatures known as hominids. These remains have been found in East Africa and indicate that this might have been the cradle of the human race.
We know that we may all have descended from an ape like hominid known as Australopithecus who walked in an almost erect position. Australopithecus was followed by Homo habilis who was able to make a few simple tools from stone. Next came Homo erectus, meaning ‘the man who stands up straight’, and from him there developed Homo sapiens, a more intelligent development of the human race.
The main difference between these categories was the size of the brain: a capacity of 500 cubic centimetres for Australopithecus and of 1, 500 for Homo sapiens.
But in 1972 the British anthropologist Richard Leakey found a skull in Kenya that belonged to a hominid with a brain capacity of 800 cubic centimetres. Leakey estimated the age of the skull as 2,600,000 years. This meant the owner of the skull lived about a million years before Homo habilis and had a bigger brain. Leakey’s discovery set off new studies into the origin of man.
Picture Credit : Google
