Question

The recent hominin fossil finds from Ileret, Kenya, negate the conventional view held since 1960 that H. habilisand H. erectusevolved one after the other. Instead, they lived side by side in eastern Africa for perhaps half a million years.A. TrueB. False

Answer 1

The given statement is true

Explanation:

The recent finding of the fossils which showed that Homo erectus and Homo habilis lived side by side in eastern Africa for perhaps half a million years challenged the conventional way that these two species evolved one after the other(H.habilis 1.44 million years old and H.erectus 1.55 million years old)

• The fossils were found in Kenya and took years to prepare the specimens for study and to be sure of the identification of the species, the scientists said
• University of Utah geologists determined the dates of the fossils from volcanic ash deposits
• The most recent Homo habilis that had been known was about the same age as the earliest Homo erectus, said Daniel Lieberman, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University, “Now we have extended the duration of the habilis species, and there’s no doubt that it overlaps considerably with erectus”
• The fact that the two hominid species lived together in the same lake basin for so long and remained separate species, Meave Leakey said in a statement from Nairobi, “suggests that they had their own ecological niche, thus avoiding direct competition”