Homo habilis

Homo habilis (Latin: "handy man"^[1]) is an extinct species of early human. Its scientific name is abbreviated as H. habilis.

Homo habilis Temporal range: Pliocene-Pleistocene
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Primates
Family:	Hominidae
Genus:	Homo
Species:	H. habilis
Binomial name
†Homo habilis Leakey et al., 1964

Scientists estimate that H. habilis lived from around 2.4 million years ago to around 1.4 million years ago.^[2] However, a H. habilis jawbone discovered in 2015 may be up to 2.8 million years old.^[3]

H. habilis was one of the earliest species of the genus Homo.^[2][4] This means it is an early ancestor of modern man.^[5] It was bipedal (it could walk on two feet), and it made and used stone tools.^[6]

Not all scientists agree about what characteristics H. habilis had, and whether it is even a separate species at all.^[5]

Discovery

The paleoanthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey were the first to find H. habilis fossils. They made their discovery in 1960 at Olduvai Gorge in the Great Rift Valley of Tanzania, East Africa.^[1] Scientists think that some of the fossils from Olduvai Gorge are around 2 million years old.^[5]

Initially, scientists thought H. habilis was the first human ancestor to make stone tools. This is why it was named Homo habilis, which means "handy man" in Latin. Later, at Lake Turkana in Kenya, archaeologists found stone tools from almost 400,000 years before H. habilis existed, before the genus Homo had even appeared.^[7]

Location

Since the Leakeys' discovery, scientists have found H. habilis remains in Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Tanzania.^[8] Because no remains have been found outside these areas, scientists theorize that H. habilis did not migrate out of Africa like Homo erectus did.^[8]

Diet

Scientists think that H. habilis got most of their meat from scavenging, not hunting.^[7] They think H. habilis was a confrontational scavenger, stealing kills from smaller animals like jackals or cheetahs.^[9]

Based on analysis of fossil teeth, H. habilis probably ate an omnivorous diet that included meat, fish^[10], and fruit^[11]. Their diet probably also included some tough foods like leaves and woody plants.^[6] Hard foods (like dried meat or brittle nuts) were generally not part of their diet.^[6]

Technology

H. habilis made and used different kinds of Oldowan stone tools.^[8] Although these tools were primitive, they were a major shift in human technology.^[8]

They may have used their hand axes to butcher meat, remove skins, crush bones, cut wood, and cut plants. H. habilis developed specialized tools for specific purposes, like scrapers and choppers. Still, according to a 1985 study, most Oldowan hand axes were probably discarded as soon as they were used.^[12]

Characteristics

Body

H. habilis had an "apelike"^[13] body structure, with long arms, a short body, and a flat face. It had a large thin skull.^[8] Compared to earlier human ancestors, it had larger front teeth and smaller back teeth.^[8] Based on H. habilis fossil fingers, it could probably grip things with its fingertips (a "precision grip").^[8]

Scientists believe they were about 1.3 metres (4.3 feet) tall, and weighed about 37 kilograms (81.6 pounds).^[14]

Brain

H. habilis was the first human ancestor to have a significant increase in brain size compared to earlier hominids like Australopithecus.^[6] This may be why it became the first human species to make stone tools. The brain size of H. habilis fossils has ranged from 500 to 800 cc (with an average of 640 cc).^[7] This was larger than Australopithecus, whose average brain size was around 440 cc.^[7]

Possible speech

Some scientists believe H. habilis could use basic language. Others disagree.

According to scientist Fred Spoor:^[8]

From Homo habilis’ behaviour of making relatively complex stone tools and knowing what we know about communication in great apes, I’m sure they had a complex way of communicating with each other. This likely included a form of language - probably to say very basic things like, “What’s a good place to get raw material for stone tools?” or “I saw a hippo carcass over there”.