Olduvai Gorge: The Skulls, Endocasts and Teeth of Homo Habilis, Vol. 4

These volumes mark the definitive publication of some of the most important fossil finds in the history of paleoanthropology: Olduvai hominids 7, 13, 16 & 24 (popularly known to workers in the field as Jonny's Child, Cindy, George & Twiggy). Found from 1960 in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, & now agreed to be 2.3-1.6 million years old, they were identified by Louis Leakey & the present author, amid great controversy in 1964, as a hitherto unrecognized species of the genus Homo, named by them Homo habilis because of his apparent tool-making abilities. Professor Tobias now develops this conclusion through extended analysis of the cranial material & teeth, & discussion of more recent East African finds from Olduvai, Omo & Lake Turkana. He sums up with a substantial exploration of the place of Homo habilis in human evolution, his status in relation to the australopithecenes & Homo erectus, & his apparent capacity for spoken language -- the key to the staggering enlargement of the human brain over the past two million years. Very likely, he argues, Homo habilis emerged around 2.5 million years ago when the hominid lineage branched during a short period of explosive evolutionary change.Tobias, Phillip V. is the author of 'Olduvai Gorge: The Skulls, Endocasts and Teeth of Homo Habilis, Vol. 4' with ISBN 9780521200721 and ISBN 0521200725.