Word: zinjanthropus
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...bluff, indomitable archaeologist who argued that his excavations added a million years to man's known presence on earth; of a heart attack; in London. From the Olduvai Gorge in what is now Tanzania, Leakey and his wife, Mary, unearthed the 1.75 million-year-old remains of the Zinjanthropus (East Africa Man) in 1959. One year later they uncovered the slightly older remains of the Homo habilis, which Leakey identified as the first primitive tool-user. These discoveries, Leakey asserted, demonstrated that different species of men existed simultaneously and proved that their origins were in Africa rather than Asia...
...NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY SPECIAL (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). More on evolution. "Dr. Leakey and the Dawn of Man" deals with Anthropologist Dr. Louis Leakey and his family of fossil hunters in East Africa. After more than 30 years, the Leakeys have made such finds as Zinjanthropus, a manlike creature believed to have lived 1,750,000 years ago, and the 2,000,000-year-old Homo habilis, who was found among some of the earliest signs of "culture," and is believed to be a direct ancestor of modern...
...this treasure chest came bones of a lowbrowed creature that Dr. Leakey named Zinjanthropus and assigned in 1959 to an honored position in man's direct ancestry. He was sure that Zinjanthropus was a toolmaker because crude stone tools were found near his remains. Many anthropologists disagreed with both these conclusions, and now Dr. Leakey has changed his mind. He now believes that Zinjanthropus was an Australopithecine, a nonhuman vegetarian of low intelligence and not a toolmaker...
...same and nearby strata came bones of a creature that is much more manlike. His well-formed foot shows that he walked erect. Despite his small brain size, he had a fairly high forehead, not a flat one like that of Zinjanthropus. He was probably about 4 ft. tall, but Dr. Leakey thinks that he used tools and weapons. Sometimes he may have killed and eaten his stupid cousin Zinjanthropus...
...manlike. Others agree that they are extremely interesting but maintain that they are too fragmentary to assign a definite place in the primate family tree. Leakey's Homo habilis may well become established as an ancestral man-if he is not first demoted to an apeman, as was Zinjanthropus...