User:Naylay10/Lake Turkana

Lake Turkana is considered the cradle of life because of the diverse hominid species found living millions of years apart, in this desert landscape. These fossils have facilitated our understanding of the dynamic human evolution process and implies that they descended from more than one common ancestor, diverging into multiple lineages.

With over 230 individuals found at the Koobi Fora site along the western shore, and scattered Homo sapien skeletons with bone marks along the eastern shore at the Nataruk Site, this region provides considerable insight to the way these early humans thrived and survived the inconsistent climate along the lake shore and beyond. Finding Australopethicus anamensis 4.2 million years ago, sets the beginning date of bipedalism back half a million years.

The changing forest environment forced the early humans to adapt to a more open grassland that increased their exposure to threatening predators. Volcanic ash and drier climates were ideal for preserving these human fossils but it also caused the lake to shrink or disappear at times. In a dry riverbed, the Lomekwi 3 site recovered primitive hammers, anvils, and cutting tools. However, the emergence of acheulean technology no longer assumes that tool use was a distinguishing factor among homo species as Australopethicus afarensis were also using simple tools prior to the appearance of the genus homo, over 3.3 million years ago.

Homo erectus is the closest of homo sapiens’ ancestors and contended to be the first hominin to cross the Levantine corridor out of Africa, into Europe and Asia 1.8 million years ago.