This is potentially quite big news. According to Foxnews, a team led by Tim Bromage at NYU is undertaking a reconstruction of the face of one of the most famous of African hominids, KNM-ER 1470, discovered by Richard Leakey in 1972. Lately, it has become the hypodigm of Homo rudolfensis and I was involved in a Journal of Human Evolution paper that evaluated whether or not the big forms of Homo habilis, represented by ER 1470 and the smaller ones, represented by ER 1813 could be attributed to the same species. We said they could but that alot of assumptions had to be made.
The skull dates to around 1.9 mya which is within the habilis range of dates but looks very different from the other forms represented. I am curious to see what Bromage and his team do to the face. To say that this a controversial undertaking is an understatement. Stay tuned.
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