OH 5: Difference between revisions
Content deleted Content added
→External links: fix Commons category link using AWB |
Merged content to Paranthropus boisei#Research history, redirecting; 2020 proposal with consensus; see Talk:OH 5#Merge tags (easy-merge) Tag: New redirect |
||
| (28 intermediate revisions by 21 users not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| ⚫ | |||
{{hatnote|OH 5 can also refer to {{ushr|Ohio|5}} or to [[Ohio State Route 5]].}} |
|||
{{Infobox fossil |
|||
|catalog number = OH 5 |
|||
|common name = Zinj or Nutcracker Man |
|||
|image =Australophithecus boisei (cast), Olduvai Gorge - Springfield Science Museum - Springfield, MA - DSC03368.JPG |
|||
| ⚫ | |||
|age = 1.75 mya |
|||
|place discovered = [[Olduvai Gorge]], [[Tanzania]] |
|||
|date discovered = July 17, 1959 |
|||
|discovered by = [[Mary Leakey]] |
|||
}} |
|||
'''OH 5''' ('''Olduvai Hominid number 5''', also known as ''Zinjanthropus'' or "'''Nutcracker Man'''"; colloquially as "Dear Boy"<ref>Cela-Conde & Ayala, 158; Lewin & Foley, 235; Morell, 183.</ref>) is a [[List of human evolution fossils|fossilized cranium]] and the [[holotype]] of the species ''[[Paranthropus boisei]]''. It was discovered in [[Olduvai Gorge]], [[Tanzania]], by [[archaeology|archaeologist]]-[[paleontology|paleontologist]] [[Mary Leakey]] in 1959. |
|||
{{R from merge}} |
|||
Her husband and fellow scientist [[Louis Leakey]] initially classified the hominid as ''Zinjanthropus boisei'' and thought that it was an early ancestor of modern humans that lived approximately 2 million years ago. However, this contention was later withdrawn because of its robust [[australopithecine]] features and the discovery of ''[[Homo habilis]]'' soon thereafter. |
|||
{{R to section}} |
|||
==Discovery== |
|||
Mary and Louis Leakey had conducted excavations in Tanzania since the 1930s, though most such work was postponed due to the outbreak of World War II. They returned in 1951, finding mostly ancient tools and [[fossil]]s of extinct [[mammal]]s for the next few years.<ref>Mary Leakey, ''My Search'', 52–53, 83; Lewin & Foley, 234.</ref> On the morning of July 17, 1959, Louis felt ill and stayed at camp while Mary went out to Bed I's Frida Leakey Korongo (''korongo'' is [[Swahili language|Swahili]] for [[gully]]; this one was named after Louis's ex-wife).<ref>Bowman-Kruhm, 66; Mary Leakey, ''Excavations'', 227; Morell, 180–181.</ref> Sometime around 11:00 a.m., she noticed a piece of bone that "seemed to be part of a skull" which had a "[[hominid]] look".<ref>Mary Leakey, ''My Search'', 75.</ref> |
|||
After dusting some topsoil away and finding "two large teeth set in the curve of a jaw", she drove back to camp exclaiming "I've got him!"<ref>Morell, 181.</ref> They created a pile of stones around the exposed portion of the fossil to protect it from the weather.<ref name="excavations 227">Mary Leakey, ''Excavations'', 227.</ref> Active excavation began the following day; they had chosen to wait for photographer Des Bartlett to arrive so that a photographic record of the entire process of removal could be made.<ref name="excavations 227" /> A partial cranium was fully unearthed August 6, though it had to be reconstructed from its fragments which were scattered in the [[scree]].<ref>Cela-Conde & Ayala, 158; Morell, 183–184.</ref> |
|||
Once he had examined the cranium, Louis determined it to be subadult, or adolescent, based on its [[dentition]], and he and Mary began to call it "Dear Boy".<ref>Cracraft & Donoghue, 524; Deacon, 56; Morell, 183–184.</ref> He also believed that it was of a species ancestral to modern humans but a member of the subfamily Australopithecinae.<ref>Cela-Conde & Ayala, 158; Johanson, Edgar & Brill, 156</ref> In describing the fossilized hominid in his journal, Louis initially considered the classification ''Titanohomo mirabilis'' (wonderful Titan-like man),<ref>Johanson, Edgar & Brill, 156; Morell, 183.</ref> but he eventually dubbed their find ''Zinjanthropus boisei'' (East Africa man). ''[[Zanj|Zinj]]'' is an ancient Arabic word for the East African coast; ''[[wiktionary:anthropo-|anthropus]]'' refers to the fossil's humanlike characteristics; and ''boisei'' refers to Charles Boise, who had been making financial contributions to the Leakeys' work since 1948.<ref>Louis Leakey, "A new fossil skull from Olduvai", 491; Morell, 185–186.</ref> This classification was eventually revised to ''Paranthropus boisei'', though this remains a matter of contention since the genus ''[[Paranthropus]]'' is disputed because of [[morphology (biology)|morphological]] similarities to ''[[Australopithecus]]''.<ref>Bowman-Kruhm, 67; Cela-Conde & Ayala, 158; Cracraft & Donoghue, 524; Deacon, 56.</ref> In either case, 5 is the holotype of its species.<ref>Cela-Conde & Ayala, 158.</ref> |
|||
==Analysis== |
|||
Louis wrote "A new fossil skull from Olduvai" for ''Nature'' the week following the excavation, detailing the titular find and the "living floor" of Bed I which was replete with fossils of other mammalian fauna.<ref>Louis Leakey, "A new fossil skull from Olduvai", 491–493.</ref> "The Newest Link in Human Evolution: The Discovery by L.S.B. Leakey of Zinjanthropus Boisei", his account of the dig, was published in the January 1960 issue of ''Current Anthropology''. It was annotated by anthropologist [[Francis Clark Howell]], who had been allowed to examine the Leakeys' Olduvai findings before public announcements of their discovery.<ref>Louis Leakey, "The Newest Link in Human Evolution", 76–77.</ref> |
|||
Louis also wrote "Finding the World's Earliest Man" for the September 1960 issue of ''National Geographic'', estimating the fossil's age to be 600,000 years old.<ref>Louis Leakey, "Finding the World's Earliest Man", 421–435; Morell, 196.</ref> University of California, Berkeley, [[geochemistry|geochemists]] Garniss Curtis and Jack Evernden used [[potassium-argon dating]] to re-assess the site, finding that Olduvai's Bed I was actually about {{ma|1.75|million years old}}.<ref>Boaz, 17; Cela-Conde & Ayala, 159; Richard Leakey, 49; Morell, 196.</ref> Such an application of [[geochronology]] was unprecedented; OH 5 became the first [[hominin]] to be dated by that method.<ref name="dunsworth L F">Dunsworth, 79; Lewin & Foley, 235.</ref> The same process was used for [[OH 7]], the holotype of ''[[Homo habilis]]'' (handy man).<ref name="dunsworth L F" /> |
|||
{{external media | align=right | width=200px | image1=[http://www.zinjanthropus.go.tz/web_images/image014.jpg Zinj on display at the National Museum of Tanzania]. }} |
|||
After the cranium was reconstructed with a model of the absent mandible, contemporaneous newspapers referred to it as "Nutcracker Man" due to the large posterior teeth and jaws which gave it a resemblance to vintage nutcrackers.<ref>Cachel, 48.</ref> [[Phillip Tobias]], a colleague of the Leakeys, has also received attribution for this nickname.<ref>Bowman-Kruhm, 66.</ref> [[Oldawan|Primitive tools]] fashioned out of rocks and bone were excavated at and around Olduvai's Bed I, sometimes called the FLK Zinjanthropus site since the finding of OH 5.<ref>Cachel, 48; Mary Leakey, ''My Search'', 52–53, 74; Spencer, 610.</ref> |
|||
Louis initially believed ''P. boisei'' to be a direct ancestor of modern humans (as evident from the title of his ''National Geographic'' article) and the maker of those tools found near its remains, but he withdrew this idea once he and Mary unearthed ''Homo habilis'' – which had a larger brain<ref>Wilkins & Wakefield, 161–226.</ref> – in the same area less than two years later.<ref>Lewin & Foley, 235; Spencer, 610.</ref> Despite that, OH 5 made the Leakeys famous and brought more attention to the developing field of [[paleoanthropology]].<ref>Bowman-Kruhm, 66; Johanson, Edgar & Brill, 158.</ref> The cranium was taken to Kenya after its discovery and was there until January 1965 when it was placed on display in the Hall of Man at the National Museum of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam.<ref name="staniforth 155">Staniforth, 155.</ref> It remains there as of 2009, still recognized by the name Zinjanthropus, or simply Zinj.<ref name="staniforth 155" /> |
|||
==Notes== |
|||
{{reflist|2}} |
|||
==References== |
|||
{{refbegin}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Boaz|first=Noel|title=Quarry Closing In On the Missing Link|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York|year=1998|ISBN=0-684-86378-2}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Bowman-Kruhm|first=Mary|title=The Leakeys: A Biography|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=2005|ISBN=0-313-32985-0}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Cachel|first=Susan|title=Primate and Human Evolution|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|year=2006|ISBN=0-521-82942-9}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Cela-Conde|first=Camilo|author2=Francisco Ayala|title=Human Evolution: Trails from the Past|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|year=2007|ISBN=0-19-856780-4}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Cracraft|first=Joel|author2=Michael Donoghue|title=Assembling the Tree of Life|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|year=2004|ISBN=0-19-517234-5}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Deacon|first=Jeanette|title=Human beginnings in South Africa|publisher=Rowman Altamira|year=1999|ISBN=0-7619-9086-0}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Dunsworth|first=Holly|title=Human Origins 101|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=2007|ISBN=0-313-33673-3}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Johanson|first=Donald|author2=Blake Edgar|others=Principal photography by David Brill|title=From Lucy to Language|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York|year=1996|ISBN=0-684-81023-9}} |
|||
*{{cite journal|last=Leakey|first=Louis|date=August 1959|title=A new fossil skull from Olduvai|journal=Nature|volume=184|issue=4685|ISSN=0028-0836| doi =10.1038/184491a0 | bibcode=1959Natur.184..491L|pages=491–493}} |
|||
*{{cite journal|author=———|date=September 1960|title=Finding the World's Earliest Man|journal=National Geographic|volume=118|issue=3|ISSN=0027-9358}} |
|||
*{{cite journal|author=———|date=January 1960|title=The Newest Link in Human Evolution: The Discovery by L.S.B. Leakey of Zinjanthropus Boisei|journal=Current Anthropology|volume=1|issue=1|ISSN=1537-5382|doi=10.1086/200077 }} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Leakey|first=Mary|title=Olduvai Gorge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=London|year=1965|volume=3: Excavations in Beds I & II, 1960–1963|ISBN=0-521-07723-0}} |
|||
*{{cite book|author=———|title=Olduvai Gorge: My Search for Early Man|publisher=Collins|location=London|year=1979|ISBN=0-00-211613-8}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Leakey|first=Richard|title=One Life|publisher=Michael Joseph|location=London|year=1983|ISBN=0-7181-2247-X}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Lewin|first=Roger|author2=Robert Foley|title=Principles of Human Evolution|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|year=2004|edition=2|ISBN=0-632-04704-6}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Morell|first=Virginia|title=Ancestral Passions: The Leakey family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York|year=1995|ISBN=0-684-82470-1}} |
|||
*{{cite book|last=Spencer|first=Frank|title=History of Physical Anthropology|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=1997|ISBN=0-8153-0490-0}} |
|||
*{{cite journal|last=Staniforth|first=Amy|date=March 2009|title=Returning Zinj: curating human origins in twentieth-century Tanzania|journal=Journal of East African Studies|volume=3|issue=1|ISSN=1753-1055}} |
|||
*{{cite journal|author=Wilkins, Wendy & Wakefield, Jenny|year=1995|title=Brain evolution and neurolinguistic preconditions|journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences|volume=18|issue=1|ISSN=0140-525X|doi=10.1017/s0140525x00037924|pages=161}} |
|||
{{refend}} |
|||
==External links== |
|||
{{Commons category|OH 5}} |
|||
*[http://www.modernhumanorigins.net/oh5.html Images of OH 5] |
|||
*[http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/oh5.htm Archaeology Info] |
|||
[[Category:Paranthropus fossils]] |
[[Category:Paranthropus fossils]] |
||
[[Category:Prehistoric Tanzania]] |
[[Category:Prehistoric Tanzania]] |
||
[[Category:Fossils of Tanzania]] |
|||
[[Category:Quaternary fossil record]] |
[[Category:Quaternary fossil record]] |
||
Latest revision as of 07:30, 10 July 2021
Redirect to:
- From a merge: This is a redirect from a page that was merged into another page. This redirect was kept in order to preserve the edit history of this page after its content was merged into the content of the target page. Please do not remove the tag that generates this text (unless the need to recreate content on this page has been demonstrated) or delete this page.
- For redirects with substantive page histories that did not result from page merges use {{R with history}} instead.
- To a section: This is a redirect from a topic that does not have its own page to a section of a page on the subject. For redirects to embedded anchors on a page, use {{R to anchor}} instead.