Photo by Neanderthal Museum on commons.wikimedia.org
This almost complete skeleton of Homo erectus was discovered in 1984. It taught scientists a lot about human history.
Today’s Google Doodle highlighted the discovery of the Turkana Human in 1984, the earliest human skeleton ever discovered. Next to a complete skeleton, the animated doodle illustrates dozens of bone fragments forming into a skull.
Turkana Human was also called Turkana Boy. His skeleton has educated researchers about the body size and shape of Homo erectus, the oldest known early human with “modern human-like physical proportions,” according to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
He lived in central-eastern Africa about 1.6 million years ago. According to the Smithsonian, he stood 5 feet, 3 inches (1.6 meters) tall and weighed 106 pounds (48 kilograms) when he was 11 or 12 years old.
The skeleton of Turkana Boy was discovered 37 years ago on the shores of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya by Kamoya Kimeu, a famed fossil collector who collaborated with the famous Leakey family of paleontologists.
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