Kenyanthropus

Kenyanthropus Temporal range: Middle Pliocene, 3.3–3.2 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Cast of KNM-WT 40000 at the Cantonal Museum of Geology, Lausanne
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Primates
Suborder:	Haplorhini
Infraorder:	Simiiformes
Family:	Hominidae
Subfamily:	Homininae
Tribe:	Hominini
Genus:	†Kenyanthropus Leakey et al., 2001
Species
†Kenyanthropus platyops (Leakey et al., 2001) †Kenyanthropus rudolfensis? (Alexeev, 1986)

Kenyanthropus is a genus of extinct hominin identified from the Lomekwi site by Lake Turkana, Kenya, dated to 3.3 to 3.2 million years ago during the Middle Pliocene. It contains one species, K. platyops, but may also include the 2 million year old Homo rudolfensis, or K. rudolfensis. Before its naming in 2001, Australopithecus afarensis was widely regarded as the only australopithecine to exist during the Middle Pliocene, but Kenyanthropus evinces a greater diversity than once acknowledged. Kenyanthropus is most recognisable by an unusually flat face and small teeth for such an early hominin, with values on the extremes or beyond the range of variation for australopithecines in regard to these features. Multiple australopithecine species may have coexisted by foraging for different food items (niche partitioning), which may be reason why these apes anatomically differ in features related to chewing.

The Lomekwi site also yielded the earliest stone tool industry, the Lomekwian, characterised by the rudimentary production of simple flakes by pounding a core against an anvil or with a hammerstone. It may have been manufactured by Kenyanthropus, but it is unclear if multiple species were present at the site or not. The knappers were using volcanic rocks collected no more than 100 m (330 ft) from the site. Kenyanthropus seems to have lived on a lakeside or floodplain environment featuring forests and grasslands.