Turkana Man Sparknotes

We humans have many questions like, what set us toward the path of Humanity. This documentary Homo sapiens, the Birth of Humanities gives us the answer to this question and many others. However, not only that, but also provide us with many facts that we have never known before. The film produces Rift Valley in Africa 2 million years ago, where our first ancestors were found. The cycle/birth of humans began way before that around 1,300,000 years when the Homo erectus species really similar to humans. Many characteristics, and physical characteristics similar to humans.
In 1984 Anthropologists Richard and Meave Leakey, who worked in Kenya, found something they had never seen before. They named it Turkana Boy. He was the earliest skeleton discovered.
He was about 5 ft. and 3 inches tall. After more research by Christopher Dean (University College London) he found a surprising truth about the growth of Turkana Boy by his tooth and which was that he was only 8 years old and was growing more. However, his growth resembled that of chimpanzees because it was faster than humans. Turkana boy’s brain was about (900cc), smaller than humans (1400cc), but bigger than chimpanzees (400cc). With further research Ralph used an endocast mold to see the structure of the brain of Turkana Boy which showed the trace of interaction between them.
On the other hand, Rick Potts also found many tools in Central Kenya created by Homo erectus which represent his intelligence and creativeness. Another question is how did the body of the Turkana boy lose his body hair?
The best way to solve this problem was to use a molecular clock to find the lice of gorillas and humans 3 million ago, when our ancestors start to lose their body hair, like Turkana Boy. The lice Turkana Boy, came from gorillas. After this research, we found out that were lice came from and how we lost our body hair on most parts. After that, the discussion questions how Turkana Boy survive and hunted for food. And how did they migrated? Surviving was the main important part and it was discovered that humans are the best, fastest runners in the animal kingdom. To hunt, they used many different self-created tools, and also sweating helped them when continuing running. Not only that, but also the first fire was also created by them, which helped them survive from dangerous predators. Also humans have learned to communicate by sitting around the fire and to be more social. Lastly, we have migration researchers who also took a notice that many ancestors migrated from the Africa’s Savannah to Indonesia, Europe and China. The Indonesia they found Homo Floresiensis 95,000-12,000 years ago. The question is why did our ancestors migrate? It could be because of the climate change. The saddest thing in this documentary was the cause of Turkana Boy’s death, which was found with his skull and jaw…his cause of death was that he was infected. It affected his regular physical and mental health by being extremely sick and constantly in pain. His body was found complete because it was found in the water. We have earned communication, emotions, and intelligence. They are our
ancestors!