The last few weeks have been busy and exciting for the crew members. What a day it was with the discovery of three hominin specimens- they were all found within hours of discovering the first one!
Crew celebrates one of the hominid finds on a day three hominid specimens were discovered
Abdub, who discovered a very important specimen two years ago, called us over excitedly. On a hillside that the crew now fondly refer to as “hominid hill”, he found several scattered teeth, amongst the pebbles. They were very hard to spot and now we are in the process of a big sieve which begins at the bottom of the hillside, up the gulley in the right of the picture to the very top of the hill that the crew are standing on.
A beaming Abdub holding a box containing his hominid find at the site
While we were gathered around Abdub’s find, we noticed another group were excitedly gathering around another hilltop. It was almost a dream, another call from them to come and have a look there. Sure enough, Elgite, who discovered a hominin last season had discovered more teeth of another hominin specimen.
Elgite crouched by his hominin find
But totally unexpectedly, another shout from Apollo, as he rushed down to us from around a corner…… “hominid!”. It took the crew some more time to register this because at first we thought it was in reference to the ones that had already been found! He however confirmed that indeed it was yet another hominin specimen, this time a molar. What a day we all had!
Apollo poses with the hominid molar moments before it was collected
The collection team only collected hominins that morning with much excitement. Now we have mountains of seiving to get through but the discoveries continue……..
