Discovery of KNM WT 17000

KNM WT 17000, nicknamed the Black Skull, is a fossil skull of an early hominin discovered by Alan Walker and his team on the west side of Lake Turkana, in Kenya. It belongs to the species Paranthropus aethiopicus and is about two and a half million years old. The skull is dark in colour because of the minerals in the ground in which it was buried. It has a pronounced crest along the top, to which powerful jaw muscles were attached, and very large teeth, suggesting a diet of tough plant material. The find helped to clarify the evolution of the robust australopithecines and showed that they were a distinct side branch from the line leading to humans.

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