a tool industry that approximately dates from 2.5 million years ago to 250,000 years ago; characterized by simple choppers and flakes that represent the oldest types of stone tools used mainly for food procurement and processing. The choppers are often very crude and have only a few flakes removed. The flakes were once thought to have been byproducts of the manufacture of the choppers, but are now believed to have also been used for cutting.
the ratio of the length of the olecranon process of the ulna to the length of the ulna from the center of the trochlear notch to the distal head, multiplied by 100.
an epoch in the Cenozoic era on the geologic time scale that approximately dates from 34 million years ago to 24 million years ago; marked by the expansion of terrestrial mammals and the diversification of primates. The Oligocene is the third epoch of the Tertiary period.
a dietary category that describes animals with no specialized diet and will eat any edible and/or nutritional foodstuffs (i.e., plants and animals).
an extinct fossil hominin species that existed in Africa approximately 6 million years ago; fossil remains found at Tugen Hills, Kenya, include portions of a femur that exhibits evidence of bipedalism (i.e, a bicondylar angle).
a hypothesis that states that an ancestral form to modern Homo sapiens evolved in Africa about 1 million years ago and migrated to the continents of Asia and Europe between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. As human populations began to radiate into other parts of the globe, they underwent separate adaptive pressures resulting in at least three distinct near-modern human forms that were later replaced by modern H. sapiens radiating from Africa. The Out of Africa model suggests little to no gene flow between modern H. sapiens and the archaic forms H. sapiens replaced.
eFossils is a collaborative website in which users can explore important fossil localities and browse the fossil digital library. If you have any problems using this site or have any other questions, please feel free to contact us.
Funding for eFossils was provided by the Longhorn Innovation Fund for Technology (LIFT) Award from the Research & Educational Technology Committee (R&E) of the IT governance structure at The University of Texas at Austin.