Zinj

On this expedition, Mary and her crew would cut back into the cliff face some thirty feet, then dig down through twenty feet of cementlike deposits composed of layers of volcanic ash, limestone, clays, and sandstone to the level she and Louis had identified as the Zinj living floor.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

On this expedition, Mary and her crew would cut back into the cliff face some thirty feet, then dig down through twenty feet of cementlike deposits composed of layers of volcanic ash, limestone, clays, and sandstone to the level she and Louis had identified as the Zinj living floor.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

Zinjanthropus boisei ( "Zinj" also known as Nutcracker man or East Africa man), because they believed the hominid was sufficiently different from the australopithecines that it represented a different species; it was later reclassified as one of the robust australopithecines.

unknown title 2009

Researchers shaped this skull on the basis of this discovery of 'Zinj' in 1959 (

Cryptomundo Loren Coleman 2010

When Zinj was found, it was assumed that it was probably half-a-million years old.

Zinj and the Leakeys 2009

Well I mean, that was the first, if you like, error when they found Zinj 50 years ago.

Zinj and the Leakeys 2009

The fragments of the skull were associated with masses of artifacts and masses of bones that had clearly been butchered and my father, at that, time was unaware that there were two taxa of hominids around because Homo habilis had not been found and he assumed they had found the tool maker because at that time it was seen as a single step-by-step progression from something like a Zinj through to something like us.

Zinj and the Leakeys 2009

Zinj was the first fossil that was securely dated.

Zinj and the Leakeys 2009

So, Zinj was the earliest but I think one of the most important things that the work at Olduvai provided, and it didn't provide it in '59 but a year later, was its context involved the possibility of dating through potassium-argon and later argon-argon radiometric dating and for the first time the very considerable antiquity of early hominids was established.

Zinj and the Leakeys 2009

There will be a meeting later this year here in Kenya to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Zinj and the status of Paranthropus versus Australopithecus will be discussed.

Zinj and the Leakeys 2009