Classification & Context

WT-1700 aka the Black Skull

-found in West Turkana at the Turkana Basin

-fossil is the black-colored

-about 2.55 mya

-scientists originally thought the fossil was much older

-fossil was dated using stratigraphy and comparing its position to other "dated marker beds" Clark (1988)

-hard to date fossils found in Turkana Basin because "the geology is poorly understood" Clark (1988)

 

photo accessed from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tab_in_Turkana_Basin,_Kenya_%22tools_of_the_trade%22.jpg

Work Cited: Clark, G.A. (1988). 
Some Thoughts on the Black Skull: An Archeologist's Assessment of WT-17000 (A. boisei) and Systematics in Human Paleontology. American Anthropologist, 90(2), 359.