"Mrs Ples" - Discovered by Robert Broom in 1947 at Sterkfontein in South Africa. It is a very well preserved cranium of an adult. It has usually been thought to be female, but there has been a recent claim that it is male. It is the best specimen of africanus. It is about 2.5 million years old, with a brain size of about 485 cc.
KNM ER - 3733 - Discovered by Bernard Ngeneo in 1975 at Koobi Fora in Kenya. Estimated age is 1.7 million years. This superb find consisted of an almost complete cranium. The brain size is about 850 cc, and the whole skull is similar to some of the Peking Man fossils. Because the facial features are less robust than that of the Turkana Boy, this skull is thought to be female.
The brain size of 850 cc is extremely small by modern standards. A very similar skull, ER 3883, is even smaller, at 800 cc.
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OH 5 -
Discovered by Mary Leakey in 1959 at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania (Leakey 1959). Estimated age is 1.8 million years. It is an almost complete cranium, with a brain size is about 530 cc. This was the first specimen of this species. Louis Leakey briefly considered this a human ancestor, but the claim was dropped when Homo habilis was found soon afterwards.
"Heidelberg Man" -
Discovered by gravel pit workers in 1907 near Heidelberg in Germany. Estimated age is between 400,000 and 700,000 years. This find consisted of a lower jaw with a receding chin and all its teeth. The jaw is extremely large and robust, like that of Homo erectus, but the teeth are at the small end of the erectus range. It is often classified as Homo heidelbergensis, but has also sometimes been considered to be a European Homo erectus.
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Evidence and observation are the building blocks of all scientific inquiry; evolutionary science is no different. Evidence in the form of the fossil record, geological formations, and genetics attest to change having taken place and give clues to how evolution works. Fossils show us a great deal about earlier human evolution. The fossil record certainly has gaps, mostly because the conditions required to create fossils have been rare ever since life began on Earth. A very small percentage of animals that have lived and died ever became fossils. Thus, many pieces of the puzzle are missing; some will never be found. Nonetheless, we have many, many fossils that illustrate evolutionary transitions between fish and amphibians, between reptiles and mammals, between dinosaurs and birds, and in many lineages such as whales and horses. And new fossils continue to reveal transitional forms that some said don't exist.
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