The discovery of a petite hominid skull has opened a debate about the physical diversity of our early ancestors.
The skull, found in several pieces in the Olorgesailie valley in southern Kenya last year, is thought to belong to a member of Homo erectus which lived around 930,000 years ago. But while it shares adult features found on other Homo erectus specimens from Africa, Europe, Indonesia and China, such as a prominent brow, it is 30 per cent smaller. That means the young adult was about two-thirds the size of its known contemporaries (Science, vol 305, p 75).…
