Lothagam

Lothagam, site of paleoanthropological excavations in northern Kenya southwest of Lake Turkana (Lake Rudolf), best known for a piece of jaw found there in 1967 that appears to be one of the oldest known fossils of a hominin (member of the human lineage). The fossil is too fragmentary to be identified with certainty, but the roots of its teeth and its general proportions resemble those of later hominins. It possibly belonged to a member of Ardipithecus (4.4 to 5.8 million years ago), a genus found at Aramis in the Afar region of Ethiopia that is similar, and perhaps related, to the hominin Australopithecus. Like Ardipithecus and unlike other early hominins, the Lothagam specimen has thin enamel on its molars.

The Lothagam site is rich in animal fossils. More than 1,000 specimens have been recovered from deposits dating from 5.5 to 8 million years ago. Numerous well-preserved skulls and limb bones of mammals (including monkeys) have been recovered from the site, but evidence of human evolution is totally absent except for the fragmentary jaw and two dental pieces at the top layers of sedimentary deposits. Analyses of the fossil animals indicate that the area had a large and slow-moving river with surrounding woodland, but by 5.5 million years ago there were open grasslands expanding nearby.