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Australopithecus, Homo erectus and the single species hypothesis

Abstract

AN enormous wealth of early hominid remains has been discovered over the past few years by expeditions within eastern Africa. Evidence has been presented for the existence over a considerable period of time of at least two contemporaneous hominid species1. Some of this evidence is compelling, but some less so for a variety of reasons such as the lack of association, fragmentary specimens, geological uncertainties, equivocal anatomical differences and suchlike. Many of these new specimens are of great antiquity and have led to suggestions that an early form of the genus Homo was contemporary with at least one species of Australopithecus. The evidence presented here deals not with the earlier stages of human evolution, but with the unequivocal occurrence of H. erectus from the Koobi Fora Formation, east of Lake Turkana (formerly Lake Rudolf).

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LEAKEY, R., WALKER, A. Australopithecus, Homo erectus and the single species hypothesis. Nature 261, 572–574 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/261572a0

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