The first Homo
A jaw from Ledi-Geraru pushes our own genus back to 2.8 million years, right as Africa dries.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 50 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 50 thousand years
- Era
- Pliocene, Cenozoic
LD 350-1 is a partial lower jaw with teeth found in the Afar in 2013 and dated to between 2.8 and 2.75 million years ago. It combines primitive australopith features at the front with slender, more evenly proportioned molars and a jaw shape characteristic of Homo, and it is currently the earliest fossil assigned to the genus. Its date sits within a few hundred thousand years of the African aridification step, of the first Paranthropus, and of the first Oldowan tools — the whole reorganisation happens in one narrow window.