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...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Almécija, S., Moya-Sola, S., & Alba, D. M. (2010). Early origin for human-like precision grasping: a comparative study of pollical distal phalanges in fossil hominins. PLoS One, 5, e11727. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011727.
Almécija, S., Tallman, M., Alba, D. M., Pina, M., Moyà-Solà, S., & Jungers, W. L. (2013). The femur of Orrorin tugenensis exhibits morphometric affinities with both Miocene apes and later hominins. Nature Communications, 4. doi: 10.1038/ncomms3888.
Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man and selection in relation to sex (Modern Library Edition). New York: Random House.
Galik, K., Senut, B., Pickford, M., Gommery, D., Treil, J., Kuperavage, A. J., & Eckhardt, R. B. (2004). External and internal morphology of the BAR 1002’00 Orrorin tugenensis femur. Science, 305, 1450–1453.
Grabowski, M., Hatala, K. G., Jungers, W. L., & Richmond, B. G. (2015). Body mass estimates of hominin fossils and the evolution of human body size. Journal of Human Evolution, 85, 75–93. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.05.005.
Pickford, M., & Senut, B. (2001). The geological and faunal context of Late Miocene hominid remains from Lukeino, Kenya. Comptes Rendus-Academie Des Sciences Paris Serie 2 Sciences De La Terre Et Des Planetes Fascicule A, 332, 145–152.
Pozzi, L., Hodgson, J. A., Burrell, A. S., Sterner, K. N., Raaum, R. L., & Disotell, T. R. (2014). Primate phylogenetic relationships and divergence dates inferred from complete mitochondrial genomes. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 75, 165–183. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2014.02.023.
Richmond, B. G., & Jungers, W. L. (2008). Orrorin tugenensis femoral morphology and the evolution of hominin bipedalism. Science, 319, 1662–1665.
Senut, B., Pickford, M., Gommery, D., Mein, P., Cheboi, K., & Coppens, Y. (2001). First hominid from the Miocene (Lukeino Formation, Kenya). Comptes Rendus-Academie Des Sciences Paris Serie 2 Sciences De La Terre Et Des Planetes Fascicule A, 332, 137–144.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this entry
Cite this entry
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
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3420-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences