Turkana Boy, also occasionally, Nariokotome Boy is the common name of fossil KNM-WT 15000, a nearly complete skeleton of a hominid who died in the early Pleistocene. This specimen is the most complete early human skeleton ever found. It is 1.5 million years old. Turkana Boy is classified as either Homo erectus or Homo ergaster.
His age has been estimated from 7 years six months to as old as 15 years. The most recent scientific review suggests 8 years of age. It was initially suggested that he would have grown into 1.85 m tall adult but the most recent analysis argues for the much shorter stature of 1.63 m. The reason for this shift has been research showing that his growth maturation differed from that of modern humans in that he would have had a shorter and smaller adolescent growth spurt.
The skeleton was discovered in 1984 by Kamoya Kimeu, a member of a team led by Richard Leakey, at Nariokotome near Lake Turkana in Kenya.
Read more about Turkana Boy: Adolescence and Maturity, Morphology, Vocal Capabilities
Famous quotes containing the word boy:
“We read that the traveller asked the boy if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had. But presently the traveller’s horse sank in up to the girths, and he observed to the boy, “I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom.” “So it has,” answered the latter, “but you have not got half way to it yet.” So it is with the bogs and quicksands of society; but he is an old boy that knows it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)