Homo habilis is a species of the Hominini tribe, which lived from approximately 2.

33 to
1.44 million years ago, during the GelasianPleistocene period.[1] While there has been
scholarly controversy regarding its placement in the genus Homo rather than the
genusAustralopithecus,[2][3] its brain size has been shown to range from 550 cm3 to
687 cm3, rather than from 363 cm3 to 600 cm3 as formerly thought.[3][4] These more
recent findings concerning brain size favor its traditional placement in the genus Homo,
as does the need for the genus to be monophyletic if H. habilis is indeed the common
ancestor.[citation needed] In its appearance and morphology, H. habilis is the least
similar to modern humans of all species in the genus Homo (except the equally
controversial H. rudolfensis), and its classification as Homo has been the subject of
controversial debate since its first proposal in the 1960s. H. habilis was short and had
disproportionately long arms compared to modern humans; however, it had a less
protruding face than the australopithecines from which it is thought to have descended.
H. habilis had a cranial capacity slightly less than half of the size of modern humans.
Despite the ape-like morphology of the bodies, H. habilis remains are often
accompanied by primitive stone tools (e.g.Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania and Lake Turkana,
Kenya). Homo habilis has often been thought to be the ancestor of the more gracile and
sophisticated Homo ergaster, which in turn gave rise to the more human-appearing
species, Homo erectus. Debates continue over whether all of the known fossils are
properly attributed to the species, and some paleoanthropologists regard the taxon as
invalid, made up of fossil specimens of Australopithecus and Homo.[5] New findings in
2007 seemed to confirm the view that H. habilis and H. erectus coexisted, representing
separate lineages from a common ancestor instead of H. erectus being descended from
H. habilis.[6] An alternative explanation would be that any ancestral relationship fromH.
habilis to H. erectus would have to have been cladogenetic rather than anagenetic
(meaning that if an isolated subgroup population ofH. habilis became the ancestor of H.
erectus, other subgroups remained as unchanged H. habilis until their much later
extinction)
Hominid (h m -n d) Any of various primates of the family Hominidae, whose only living
members are modern humans. Hominids are characterized by an upright gait, increased
brain size and intelligence compared with other primates, a flattened face, and reduction
in the size of the teeth and jaw. Besides the modern species Homo sapiens, hominids
also include extinct species of Homo (such as H. erectus) and the extinct genus
Australopithecus. In some classifications, the family Hominidae also includes the
anthropoid apes. As mentioned, Hominidae was originally the name given to humans
and their extinct relatives, with the other great apes being placed in a separate family,
the Pongidae. However, that definition made Pongidae paraphyletic because at least
one great ape species appears to be more closely related to humans than to other great
apes. Most taxonomists nowadays encourage monophyletic groups this would require
the use of Pongidae to be restricted to one of the great ape groups (containing Pongo,
the orangutans) only. Thus, many biologistsconsider Hominidae to include Pongidae as
the subfamily Ponginae, or restrict the latter to the orangutans and their extinct relatives,
such