Abstract
THE controversial mandibular fragment from Kanam in Kenya Colony has long been placed in a ‘suspense account’ by most palæo-anthropologists. There is little doubt that the presence of an ostensibly well-developed chin in this fossil, for which a Lower Pleistocene age was claimed1, proved a difficult pill to swallow. As long as the over-simplified notion prevailed that a chin signified Homo sapiens and, as long as the Kanam fragment was deemed to possess a chin, one had to explain the unexpected presence of Homo sapiens in a Lower Pleistocene deposit or discard either the dating of the deposit or the association of the jaw with the deposit.
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References
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TOBIAS, P. The Kanam Jaw. Nature 185, 946–947 (1960). https://doi.org/10.1038/185946a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/185946a0
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