Homo habilis, the handy man
A small-bodied hominin with a bigger brain and a name that assumed it made the tools.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 660 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 60 thousand years
- Era
- Early Pleistocene, Quaternary
Homo habilis, described by Louis Leakey and colleagues in 1964 from Olduvai Gorge, has a brain of roughly 600 to 700 cubic centimetres — larger than an australopith's but well short of ours — with smaller teeth and a less projecting face. The name means handy man, awarded on the assumption that it was the toolmaker, an assumption weakened by the discovery of older tools. Its body remains australopith-like: short, long-armed, and still climbing. Whether it belongs in Homo at all is a genuine and unresolved argument.