Turkana Boy – The Boy Who Waited 1.6 Million Years to Be Found

It began with a small piece of bone

One day in 1984, the legendary Kenyan fossil hunter Kamoya Kimeu was walking through the dry landscape at Nariokotome, on the western side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, in a place where most of us would probably have concluded that it was hot, dusty and contained an impressive number of stones, before beginning a serious search for shade and something cold to drink. Kimeu looked at stones, soil and little fragments sticking out of the ground rather differently. After years of working with people including Mary and Richard Leakey, he had developed an extraordinary eye for exactly the sort of thing everyone else walked straight past, and that day he noticed a small piece of skull near a dry riverbed.

That little fragment turned out to be the beginning of one of the most famous discoveries in the study of our early human past. Careful excavation revealed more and more bones until the researchers eventually had much of the skeleton of a child who had lived in this part of Africa around 1.6 million years ago. It remains the most complete known skeleton of an early human of this kind from the period, although researchers — naturally, because otherwise they wouldn’t be researchers — do not entirely agree on what to call his species. Most commonly you will see Homo erectus, while some scientists use Homo ergaster for the early African members of the family.

Fortunately, the rest of us can avoid most of that argument.

We can simply call him Turkana Boy.

A name only a scientist could love

Turkana Boy is also known as Nariokotome Boy, after the place where he was found, while his official catalogue name is KNM-WT 15000, which is undoubtedly very useful if you work with ancient human bones but, to the rest of us, sounds suspiciously like the part number for something you need to order for a Toyota Land Cruiser.

His real name, of course, is lost forever, and we do not even know whether people of his time used personal names in anything like the way we do. We don’t know what anyone called him, who his parents were, who he grew up with, or whether somebody missed him when he died. His bones, however, have told us an astonishing amount about his body, and because so much of his skeleton survived, this one boy has helped change our understanding of how some of our very early relatives grew and moved.

The strange thing is that the more scientists discover about his body, the clearer it becomes how little we will ever know about him.
And perhaps that is exactly what makes his story so fascinating.

Eight years old – and almost adult height?

When Turkana Boy was first studied, researchers thought he might have been around 11 to 13 years old, partly because his development was compared with that of modern humans. Later studies of the tiny growth patterns preserved in his teeth suggested something rather different: he was probably only around eight or nine years old when he died.

And this is where you look at his height and feel the need to ask: Sorry, how old did you say he was?

Reconstructions of the skeleton put him at around 160 centimetres, or perhaps a little taller, which looks rather remarkable if we immediately compare him with a modern eight-year-old. Had he wandered into a Kenyan or Danish school classroom today, the teacher would probably not have put him in the front row for the class photograph.

But this is exactly where we need to stop ourselves, because we are already doing something very human: taking out our own measuring stick and trying to use it on a boy who lived 1.6 million years ago.

An eight-year-old Homo erectus was not simply a modern eight-year-old with heavier eyebrows. His growth and development probably followed a different pattern from ours, and researchers therefore disagree about how much growing he still had left to do. Early estimates suggested that he might eventually have reached around 180–185 centimetres as an adult, while later research has questioned that assumption. The problem is that we don’t have a conveniently preserved classroom full of Homo erectus children and adults that we can line up against a wall with a measuring tape.

Other fossils also suggest considerable variation in body size among people of his type, so perhaps Turkana Boy was unusually tall for his age, perhaps his growth pattern was simply very different from ours, or perhaps the truth lies somewhere between the two. What we can say is that we should be careful when we hear the words eight years old and immediately picture an eight-year-old child we know today.

His skeleton does tell us something more certain. Turkana Boy had long legs and relatively short arms, and his body proportions were strikingly more human-like than those of earlier human types. He was built to walk upright and to move efficiently through the landscape.

If we could somehow bring him back for a moment and have him stand in front of us, his head and face would make it very clear that we were not looking at a modern human, while the rest of his body might make us look twice.

There is something recognisable about him.

And that is where the imagination almost automatically begins to take over.

For a moment, forget the skeleton

This is the problem with prehistory. We get the bones, the stone tools and the marks left in the ground, while the person who once owned those bones has disappeared.

So let’s allow ourselves to do what museums and storytellers often do when the facts can take us no further.

Let’s imagine.

Not what did happen, because we don’t know that, but what could have surrounded him.

Imagine the East African landscape around 1.6 million years ago, when Turkana Boy lived in a warm region of lakes, rivers, wetlands and open country. He moved through this world on his long legs alongside others of his kind, and archaeological discoveries tell us that people of his time could make and use stone tools for cutting and working materials.

But what did he do?

Did children follow the adults across the landscape, and did he already have responsibilities that we would consider rather unreasonable for an eight-year-old today — assuming it even makes sense to compare his childhood with ours? Did he play? Did he get told off? Were there some people he wanted to be around and others he tried to avoid? Could he tease someone, laugh, or become thoroughly offended and sit a little distance away because life as a child was already deeply unfair 1.6 million years ago?

We don’t know, and neither do we know exactly how people of his type communicated. Their bodies and brains provide scientists with clues, but unfortunately nobody thought to leave us a recording of a conversation beside Lake Turkana on a Tuesday afternoon 1.6 million years ago.

At this point, you begin to wish somebody had kept a diary.

Jean M. Auel would have given him a family by now

Anyone who has read Jean M. Auel’s Earth’s Children novels will probably recognise the temptation, because she did exactly what a novelist is allowed to do: she took what we know about people of the distant past, put the evidence on the table and then began filling the spaces between the discoveries with people, emotions, love, conflict, everyday life and stories.

We could do exactly the same with Turkana Boy. We could give him a name, a mother, an irritating younger brother and a best friend, let him wake in the morning and follow him through an adventurous day until, as the sun went down, he sat with the others around a fire.

And right about there, the scientist who studies our earliest human history would probably begin clearing their throat rather loudly.

For one thing, Auel’s stories take place tens of thousands of years ago. Turkana Boy lived roughly one and a half million years earlier. And even our cosy evening fire creates problems, because researchers still debate when our early relatives learned to control and use fire regularly. There is very old evidence of burning, but unfortunately a burnt bone cannot tell us whether somebody was sitting happily around a campfire or whether the grassland had simply caught fire.

So, for the moment, we have to take the fire away from him again.

It was just beginning to feel rather cosy.

But we can keep the questions, because perhaps they matter more than the answers we don’t have.

Beautiful? Probably. Safe? Probably not.

When we imagine the distant past, we have a remarkable tendency to give it golden evening light, a few animals moving gracefully across the horizon and some suitably atmospheric music, and there is really nothing wrong with being a little romantic as long as we remember that Turkana Boy’s world was not a wildlife documentary he could switch off when the lion came too close.

There was no modern medical care, no antibiotics, no shop if food became scarce and no tap if water became difficult to find. A wound, infection or injury could have consequences very different from those we know today, and humans had not yet achieved their comfortable modern position as the self-appointed managing directors of Planet Earth.

At the same time, we shouldn’t make Turkana Boy’s life unnecessarily dramatic simply because it makes a better story. There are several ideas about his health and what may have caused his death, but researchers cannot give us a certain answer, so the most honest conclusion is also the least spectacular:
We don’t know what killed him.

And we don’t need to.

He didn’t know he was living in prehistory

There is something else we easily forget when looking at fossils behind museum glass. Turkana Boy obviously had no idea that he was Homo erectus, and he presumably didn’t wake in the morning thinking, Right then, another busy day in prehistory.

To him, the world wasn’t ancient.

It was now.

He didn’t think of himself as an interesting stage on the long road towards modern humans, and he could never have imagined that some distant human species would one day measure his skull, examine his teeth and argue about his Latin species name in universities around the world.

He was simply alive, and perhaps that is where the 1.6 million years between us suddenly become a little easier to cross. We don’t know how he thought, or how much his awareness resembled ours, but we do know that this body once moved through a real landscape. He needed food and water, reacted to the world around him and lived among others of his kind until, one day, he died.

And then the very long wait began.

The longest wait to be rediscovered

The years passed, which in this particular case is a rather inadequate way of putting it. A thousand years became ten thousand, ten thousand became a hundred thousand and eventually more than a million, while human species appeared and disappeared, our own species arrived, people spread across the planet, learned to farm, built cities, invented writing, kingdoms, religions, steam engines, cars and aeroplanes and eventually created social media, where the entire technological achievement of humanity could finally be used to argue with complete strangers about whether pineapple belongs on pizza.

And through all of this, the remains of a nameless boy lay in the ground near Lake Turkana.

Until Kamoya Kimeu noticed a small piece of bone in 1984.

It is difficult not to become a little romantic about that thought, because we will never know his name, we will never know who cared for him, what frightened him, what made him react, or whether anyone missed him when he died. We know far more about his bones than we will ever know about the boy inside them.

But around 1.6 million years later, he was found.

And ever since, this unknown boy from Kenya has helped us tell the longest story human beings can possibly tell:
the story of ourselves.

Curious to know more?

If Turkana Boy has made you curious, these are three excellent places to continue exploring his story and the science behind it:
Smithsonian Human Origins – Turkana Boy — an accessible introduction to the discovery, his age, body and importance to our understanding of human evolution.
Turkana Basin Institute – The Life & Times of Turkana Boy — particularly useful if you want to explore the boy, his discovery and the world in which he lived.
Australian Museum – Homo ergaster — for readers who want to dig a little deeper into what kind of early human Turkana Boy was and where he fits into our evolutionary story.

Turkana Boy – drengen, der ventede 1,6 millioner år på at blive fundet

Det begyndte med et lille stykke knogle

En dag i 1984 gik den legendariske kenyanske fossiljæger Kamoya Kimeu gennem det tørre landskab ved Nariokotome på vestsiden af Lake Turkana i det nordlige Kenya, et sted hvor de fleste af os sandsynligvis ville have konstateret, at der var varmt, støvet og temmelig mange sten, hvorefter vi havde søgt efter et sted med skygge og noget koldt at drikke. Kimeu så anderledes på sten, jord og små stumper, der stak op af jorden, for han havde gennem mange års arbejde med blandt andre Mary og Richard Leakey udviklet et blik for netop det, som alle andre gik forbi, og denne dag fik han øje på et lille stykke kranium ved et udtørret flodleje.

Det lille stykke skulle vise sig at være begyndelsen på et af de mest berømte fund i udforskningen af menneskets tidlige historie, for efter omhyggelige udgravninger dukkede stadig flere knogler frem, og efterhånden stod forskerne med store dele af skelettet fra et barn, der havde levet i området for omkring 1,6 millioner år siden. Det er det mest komplette kendte skelet af et tidligt menneske af denne type fra perioden, selv om forskerne — naturligvis, for ellers ville de ikke være forskere — ikke engang er helt enige om, hvad vi skal kalde hans art.

Oftest møder man betegnelsen Homo erectus, mens nogle forskere bruger Homo ergaster om de tidlige afrikanske medlemmer af familien.
Vi andre kan heldigvis slippe lidt lettere om ved problemet. Vi kalder ham bare Turkana Boy.

Et navn kun en videnskabsmand kunne elske

Turkana Boy kaldes også Nariokotome Boy efter stedet, hvor han blev fundet, mens hans officielle katalogbetegnelse er KNM-WT 15000, hvilket utvivlsomt er praktisk, hvis man arbejder med gamle menneskeknogler, men for os andre lyder en smule som reservedelsnummeret på noget, man bestiller til en Toyota Land Cruiser.

Hans virkelige navn kender vi selvfølgelig ikke, og vi ved faktisk heller ikke, om mennesker på hans tid brugte personlige navne på en måde, vi ville genkende. Vi ved ikke, hvad nogen kaldte ham, hvem hans forældre var, hvem han voksede op sammen med, eller om nogen savnede ham, da han døde. Til gengæld har hans knogler fortalt os forbavsende meget om hans krop, og fordi så meget af skelettet blev bevaret, har netop denne ene dreng været med til at ændre vores forståelse af, hvordan nogle af vores meget tidlige slægtninge voksede og bevægede sig.

Det mærkelige er, at jo mere forskerne har lært om hans krop, desto tydeligere bliver det samtidig, hvor lidt vi nogensinde kommer til at vide om ham. Og det er måske netop derfor, historien bliver interessant.

Otte år gammel – og allerede næsten voksenhøj?

Da Turkana Boy først blev undersøgt, mente forskerne, at han havde været omkring 11–13 år gammel, blandt andet fordi man sammenlignede hans udvikling med moderne menneskers. Senere undersøgelser af de små vækstspor i hans tænder pegede imidlertid på noget ganske andet: Han var sandsynligvis kun omkring otte eller ni år, da han døde.

Og så bliver det fristende at kigge på hans højde og udbryde: Undskyld, hvor gammel sagde du?

Rekonstruktioner af skelettet placerer ham omkring 160 centimeter eller lidt derover, og hvis man straks sammenligner med en moderne otteårig, ser det mildest talt bemærkelsesværdigt ud. Hvis han var kommet ind i en dansk eller kenyansk skoleklasse i dag, havde han næppe fået pladsen forrest på klassebilledet.

Men her skal vi faktisk stoppe os selv, for vi er allerede i færd med at gøre noget meget menneskeligt: Vi tager vores egen målestok frem og forsøger at måle en dreng, der levede for 1,6 millioner år siden, med den.

En otteårig Homo erectus var ikke bare en moderne otteårig med kraftigere øjenbryn. Hans vækst og modning fulgte sandsynligvis et andet mønster end vores, og forskerne er derfor heller ikke enige om, hvor meget han havde tilbage at vokse. Tidlige beregninger førte til forestillingen om, at han måske kunne være blevet omkring 180–185 centimeter som voksen, mens senere undersøgelser har sat spørgsmålstegn ved netop den antagelse. Vi har ganske enkelt ikke en skoleklasse fuld af velbevarede Homo erectus-børn og voksne, som vi kan stille op langs væggen med en målestok.

Andre fossiler viser samtidig, at mennesker af hans type kunne variere betydeligt i størrelse, så måske var Turkana Boy usædvanligt høj for sin alder, måske var hans vækstmønster meget anderledes end vores, eller måske ligger sandheden et sted midt imellem. Det eneste sikre er, at vi skal være forsigtige med at høre ordene otte år og straks forestille os den otteårige, vi selv kender.

Til gengæld fortæller skelettet os noget, vi kan være mere sikre på: Turkana Boy havde lange ben og forholdsvis korte arme, og hans kropsproportioner var påfaldende mere menneskelignende end hos tidligere mennesketyper. Han var bygget til at gå oprejst og bevæge sig effektivt gennem landskabet.

Så hvis vi på mirakuløs vis kunne få ham til at rejse sig og stå foran os, ville hans hoved og ansigt tydeligt fortælle os, at vi ikke stod over for et moderne menneske, mens resten af kroppen måske ville få os til at kigge en ekstra gang.

Der er noget genkendeligt ved ham, og netop dér begynder fantasien næsten automatisk at arbejde.

Prøv et øjeblik at glemme skelettet

For det er jo problemet med forhistorien: Vi får knoglerne, stenredskaberne og sporene i jorden, mens det menneske, der engang ejede knoglerne, for længst er forsvundet.

Så lad os tillade os det, museer og historiske fortællere også gør, når fakta ikke længere kan føre os hele vejen: Lad os forestille os.

Ikke hvad der skete, for det ved vi ikke, men hvad der kunne have været omkring ham.

Forestil dig det østafrikanske landskab for omkring 1,6 millioner år siden, hvor Turkana Boy levede i et varmt område med søer, floder, vådområder og åbent land. Han bevægede sig gennem denne verden på sine lange ben sammen med andre af sin art, og vi ved fra fund, at mennesker på hans tid kunne fremstille og bruge stenredskaber til blandt andet at skære og bearbejde med.

Men hvad lavede han?

Fulgte børn de voksne gennem landskabet, og havde han allerede opgaver, som vi i dag ville synes var temmelig urimelige at give et barn på otte år — hvis det overhovedet giver mening at sammenligne hans barndom med vores? Legede han? Blev han skældt ud? Var der nogen, han helst ville være sammen med, og andre han forsøgte at undgå? Kunne han drille, kunne han grine, og kunne han blive fornærmet og sætte sig lidt væk fra de andre, fordi livet som barn allerede dengang kunne være dybt uretfærdigt?

Vi ved det ikke, og vi ved heller ikke præcist, hvordan mennesker af hans type kommunikerede. Deres kroppe og hjerner kan give forskerne nogle spor, men desværre findes der ingen lydoptagelse af en samtale ved Lake Turkana en tirsdag eftermiddag for 1,6 millioner år siden.
Det er på dette tidspunkt, man begynder at ønske, at nogen dengang havde ført dagbog.

Her ville Jean M. Auel allerede have givet ham en familie

Hvis man har læst Jean M. Auels Jordens Børn, kender man fristelsen, for hun gjorde netop det, romanforfatteren har lov til: Hun tog den viden, vi har om mennesker fra fortiden, lagde den på bordet og begyndte derefter at fylde hullerne mellem fundene med mennesker, følelser, kærlighed, konflikter, dagligdag og historier.

Vi kunne gøre det samme med Turkana Boy. Vi kunne give ham et navn, en mor, en irriterende lillebror og en bedste ven, lade ham vågne om morgenen og følge ham gennem en dag, indtil han om aftenen satte sig sammen med de andre omkring bålet.

Og lige dér ville forskeren, der arbejder med menneskets tidligste historie, nok begynde at rømme sig lidt diskret.

For det første foregår Auels historier titusinder af år tilbage i tiden, mens Turkana Boy levede omkring halvanden million år tidligere. For det andet er selv det hyggelige lejrbål problematisk, fordi forskerne stadig diskuterer, hvornår vores meget tidlige slægtninge lærte at kontrollere og bruge ild regelmæssigt. Der findes meget gamle spor efter ild, men problemet er, at et brændt stykke knogle ikke selv kan fortælle os, om nogen hyggede sig omkring et bål, eller om savannen simpelthen havde været i brand.

Så bålet må vi foreløbig tage fra ham igen.

Det var ellers lige blevet så hyggeligt.

Men vi kan beholde spørgsmålene, for de er måske vigtigere end de svar, vi ikke har.

Smukt? Sandsynligvis. Sikkert? Næppe.

Når vi forestiller os fortiden, har vi en bemærkelsesværdig evne til at give den gyldent aftenlys, en flok dyr ude i horisonten og passende stemningsfuld musik, og der er egentlig ikke noget galt i at være lidt romantisk, så længe vi husker, at Turkana Boys verden ikke var en naturdokumentar, han kunne slukke for, når løven kom for tæt på.

Der fandtes ingen moderne lægehjælp, ingen antibiotika, ingen butik, hvis føden slap op, og ingen vandhane, hvis vandet forsvandt. Et sår, en infektion eller en skade kunne få helt andre konsekvenser, end vi er vant til, og mennesket havde endnu ikke fået den komfortable position som planetens selvudnævnte administrerende direktør.

Vi skal dog også passe på ikke at gøre Turkana Boys liv dramatisk bare for historiens skyld. Der findes forskellige teorier om hans helbred og om, hvad han kan være død af, men forskerne kan ikke give os et sikkert svar, og derfor er den mest ærlige løsning også den mindst spektakulære:
Vi ved ikke, hvad han døde af.

Og det behøver vi heller ikke vide.

Han vidste ikke, at han levede i forhistorien

Der er noget andet, vi let glemmer, når vi kigger på fossiler gennem en montre: Turkana Boy vidste naturligvis ikke, at han var Homo erectus, og han vågnede næppe om morgenen og tænkte: Nå, så må vi hellere komme i gang med endnu en dag i forhistorien.

For ham var verden ikke gammel. Den var nu.

Han betragtede ikke sig selv som et interessant trin på den meget lange vej frem mod det moderne menneske, og han kunne umuligt vide, at en fjern menneskeart en dag ville måle hans kranium, undersøge hans tænder og diskutere hans latinske artsnavn på universiteter rundt omkring på kloden.

Han var bare levende, og måske er det netop dér, de 1,6 millioner år pludselig bliver lidt lettere at krydse, for selv om vi ikke ved, hvordan han tænkte, eller hvor meget hans bevidsthed lignede vores, så ved vi, at denne krop engang bevægede sig gennem en virkelig verden. Han havde brug for mad og vand, reagerede på sine omgivelser og levede blandt andre af sin art, indtil han en dag døde.

Derefter begyndte den meget lange ventetid.

Den længste ventetid på at blive genopdaget

Årene gik, hvilket i dette tilfælde er en temmelig beskeden måde at beskrive det på. Tusind år blev til ti tusind, ti tusind til hundrede tusind og til sidst til mere end en million, mens menneskearter opstod og forsvandt, vores egen art kom til, mennesker spredte sig over kloden, begyndte at dyrke jorden, byggede byer, opfandt skrift, kongeriger, religioner, dampmaskiner, biler og flyvemaskiner og til sidst sociale medier, hvor menneskehedens samlede teknologiske udvikling blandt andet gjorde det muligt at diskutere med fremmede mennesker, om ananas bør ligge på en pizza.

Og gennem alt dette lå resterne af en navnløs dreng i jorden ved Turkana.

Indtil Kamoya Kimeu i 1984 fik øje på et lille stykke knogle.

Det er svært ikke at blive en smule romantisk over den tanke, for vi kommer aldrig til at kende hans navn, vi kommer aldrig til at vide, hvem der holdt af ham, hvad han frygtede, hvad der fik ham til at reagere, eller om nogen savnede ham, da han døde. Vi ved langt mere om hans knogler, end vi nogensinde kommer til at vide om drengen inde i dem.

Men omkring 1,6 millioner år senere blev han fundet.

Og siden da har denne ukendte dreng fra Kenya været med til at fortælle os noget om den længste historie, vi mennesker overhovedet kan fortælle:
historien om os selv.

Nysgerrig efter mere?


Smithsonian Human Origins – Turkana Boy — en let tilgængelig introduktion til selve fundet, hans alder, krop og betydning for forskningen.
Turkana Basin Institute – The Life & Times of Turkana Boy — et rigtig godt sted at fortsætte, hvis man er blevet nysgerrig på både drengen, fundet og den verden, han levede i.
Australian Museum – Homo ergaster — hvis man vil lidt længere ned i spørgsmålet om, hvilken mennesketype Turkana Boy tilhørte, og hvor han passer ind i vores udviklingshistorie.

See the poster. Click here.

If you want to explore the story in more depth, take a look at the book here.