Early hominid from Baringo, Kenya

Palaeontological evidence and comparative molecular studies of modern hominoids suggest that major evolutionary changes occurred in the African Hominoidea between 14 Myr and 4 Myr1–3. Unfortunately, very few relevant fossils are known from that time interval4–13. Rocks exposed in the fault scarps of the Tugen Hills in the north Kenya Rift Valley west of Lake Baringo are important as the major known outcrops of fossiliferous sediments spanning this otherwise poorly known time period13,14. As reported here, a new fossil hominid from Tabarin, within this sequence, establishes the presence of the family in Africa as much as 5 Myr ago. Before this find the oldest well-documented occurrence of hominids was the Australopithecus afarensis material from Laetoli, Tanzania15. The Tabarin specimen is up to one million years nearer the divergence point between hominids and the African apes. In several features it resembles A. afarensis rather than other hominoids.