Turkana Boy

alternative Turkana boy

1. archaeologyThe nearly complete fossilised skeleton of a Homo ergaster youth (estimated 7–11 years old at death) who lived 1.5 to 1.6 million years ago.

   The prime importance of the Turkana Boy is that he represented the earliest kind of human we know of whose general body proportions matched those of living people.

   1995, Ian Tattersall, The Fossil Trail, Cambridge University Press, page 118

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   As Homo erectus is no chimpanzee, Turkana boy’s true age at death was probably between seven and 11 years. What is clear is that the Turkana boy followed a pattern of growth that is neither that of a modern human nor that of a chimpanzee.

   1999, Barry Bogin, Patterns of Human Growth, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, page 202

   2009, Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth, Simon & Schuster (Free Press), page 197, The most famous specimen of Homo ergaster, and one of the most complete pre-human fossils ever found, is the Turkana Boy, or Nariokotome Boy, discovered by Kamoya Kimeu, star fossil-finder of Richard Leakey's team of palaeontologists. The Turkana Boy lived approximately 1.6 million years ago and died at the age of about eleven.

   Synonyms: Nariokotome Boy, KNM-WT 15000

1. Alternative letter-case form of Turkana Boy.