Africa still holds the key to the true origin of man. The search for clues still depends on yields from locations around the continent. Now, archeologists think there are clues to unravel humanity’s attitude on monogamy and polygamy.
Scientists in Kenya have reported some useful discoveries. ‘Prior to the discovery of the new specimens, scientists did not know that Homo erectus males were far larger than the females,’ said Dr Emma Mbua, one of the team.
“This sexual dimorphism is considered a primitive character because it occurs in other apes,” she said.
She said this could also mean the sexual behaviour of Homo erectus was more like that of apes, where individuals, especially males, mate with several partners, sometimes in a few hours, than that of its more monogamous human successors. Analysts think by this discovery, the closer a race is to man’s origin, the more polygamous they may be.
The research, first published in the journal Nature, was conducted by nine scientists including well-known palaeontologist Meave Leakey and her daughter Louise Leakey. The researchers think both Homo erectus and Homo habilis must have evolved from a common ancestor 2-3 million years ago.
“Homo erectus, long viewed as a crucial evolutionary link between modern humans and their tree-dwelling ancestors, may have been more ape-like than previously thought, scientists unveiling new-found fossils said,” according to Reuters reports.
Revealing an ancient skull and a jawbone from two early branches of the human family tree—homo erectus and homo habilis—a team of Kenyan scientists said they were surprised to find that early female hominids were much smaller than males. The skull was the first discovery of a female Homo erectus. It suggests mankind's upright ancestors may have been physiologically closer to modern gorillas and chimpanzees, which also exhibit big differences in size between males and females, than had been supposed.
The fossils, discovered in east Africa's Rift Valley, regarded as the "cradle of humankind", challenge the idea that human prototypes evolved one after the other in a linear fashion from Homo habilis to Homo erectus, ending with modern humans.
Both fossils were found in 2000 east of Lake Turkana. But the Homo erectus skull, dating back 1.55 million years, was slightly older than the Homo habilis jawbone, which was found to be 1.44 million years old, the scientists said.