Scientists working in Kenya have discovered a 900,000-year-old hominid skull which could fill a gap in paleontologists' knowledge about the early ancestors of man, National Museums of Kenya (NMK) said on Saturday.
"The age of the fossil is about 900,000 years old, technically between 970,000 and 900,000 years old," National Museums of Kenya (NMK) said in a statement faxed to AFP.
The discovery was made last summer at Olorgesailie, a pre-historic site in south-western Kenya.
"This is the first human fossil found at Olorgesailie after 62 years of excavation at the site," the NMK said. It said it was the "first well-dated fossil that stands in a 400,000 year gap in the human fossil record in East Africa. The gap is between a million and 600,000 years old, an important time prior to the origin of our species, homo sapiens".