Definition
Orrorin tugenensis is the species name given in 2001 to fossils, from sites about six million years old in Tugen Hills in Kenya, that are thought to represent one of the very earliest members of the human lineage.
Introduction
At the turn of the millennium in 2000, a team led by French paleoanthropologists Brigitte Senut and Martin Pickford discovered a dozen fossil bones and jaw fragments of a previously unknown species in the Tugen Hills in central Kenya. The bones and teeth showed a combination of human and ape features not seen in any other species, leading them to name a new genus and species, Orrorin tugenensis (Senut et al. 2001). The name Orrorin means “original man” in the Tugen language, and Senut et al. noted that the pronunciation resembles the French word aurore meaning “dawn, daybreak,” both referring to the idea that this species lies at or near the beginning of the human family tree. The specific name tugenensisrefers to the Tugen Hills where the fossils...
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References
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Richmond, B. (2016). Orrorin tugenensis . In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3420-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3420-1
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