Turkana Boy fossil
E382746
The Turkana Boy fossil is an exceptionally well-preserved nearly complete skeleton of a Homo erectus (or Homo ergaster) youth from about 1.6 million years ago that has provided crucial insights into early human growth and anatomy.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| KNM-WT 15000 | 1 |
| Nariokotome Boy | 1 |
| Turkana Boy fossil canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3716294 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Turkana Boy fossil Context triple: [Lake Turkana, associatedWithDiscovery, Turkana Boy fossil]
-
A.
Naledi
Naledi is a residential township neighborhood within Soweto, a large urban area southwest of Johannesburg, South Africa.
-
B.
Hall of Human Origins
The Hall of Human Origins is a major exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History that explores the science and story of human evolution through fossils, artifacts, and interactive displays.
-
C.
Dmanisi
Dmanisi is an archaeological site and town in southern Georgia renowned for yielding some of the earliest known hominin fossils outside Africa.
-
D.
Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis cast)
Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis cast) is a replica of the famous 3.2-million-year-old hominin fossil that provides key evidence for early human bipedalism and evolution.
-
E.
Tendaguru Formation
The Tendaguru Formation is a renowned fossil-rich sedimentary deposit in Tanzania that has yielded some of the most important Late Jurassic dinosaur and marine reptile remains in Africa.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Turkana Boy fossil Target entity description: The Turkana Boy fossil is an exceptionally well-preserved nearly complete skeleton of a Homo erectus (or Homo ergaster) youth from about 1.6 million years ago that has provided crucial insights into early human growth and anatomy.
-
A.
Naledi
Naledi is a residential township neighborhood within Soweto, a large urban area southwest of Johannesburg, South Africa.
-
B.
Hall of Human Origins
The Hall of Human Origins is a major exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History that explores the science and story of human evolution through fossils, artifacts, and interactive displays.
-
C.
Dmanisi
Dmanisi is an archaeological site and town in southern Georgia renowned for yielding some of the earliest known hominin fossils outside Africa.
-
D.
Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis cast)
Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis cast) is a replica of the famous 3.2-million-year-old hominin fossil that provides key evidence for early human bipedalism and evolution.
-
E.
Tendaguru Formation
The Tendaguru Formation is a renowned fossil-rich sedimentary deposit in Tanzania that has yielded some of the most important Late Jurassic dinosaur and marine reptile remains in Africa.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Homo erectus individual
ⓘ
Homo ergaster individual ⓘ hominin fossil ⓘ prehistoric human skeleton ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
Turkana Boy fossil
ⓘ
surface form:
KNM-WT 15000
Turkana Boy fossil ⓘ
surface form:
Nariokotome Boy
|
| approximateYearBP | about 1,600,000 years before present ⓘ |
| associatedEnvironment | lakeshore and riverine habitats near Lake Turkana ⓘ |
| belongsToCollection | paleoanthropology collection of the National Museums of Kenya ⓘ |
| bodyHeightAtDeath | about 1.47 m ⓘ |
| bodyPlan | long-legged, relatively slender body ⓘ |
| brainVolume | about 880 cubic centimeters ⓘ |
| browRidge | pronounced supraorbital torus ⓘ |
| continentOfDiscovery | Africa ⓘ |
| countryOfDiscovery | Kenya ⓘ |
| cranialCapacityComparedToEarlierHominins | larger than Australopithecus ⓘ |
| cranialCapacityComparedToModernHumans | smaller than modern humans ⓘ |
| currentLocation |
National Museums of Kenya
ⓘ
surface form:
National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi
|
| datingMethod |
radiometric dating of associated volcanic layers
ⓘ
stratigraphic correlation ⓘ |
| dentalDevelopment | teeth indicate pre-adolescent age ⓘ |
| discoveredBy | Kamoya Kimeu ⓘ |
| discoveredDuring |
Koobi Fora
ⓘ
surface form:
Richard Leakey’s Koobi Fora Research Project
|
| discoveredOn | 1984 ⓘ |
| discoverySite | Nariokotome, west of Lake Turkana, Kenya ⓘ |
| estimatedAdultHeight | about 1.80 m ⓘ |
| estimatedAgeAtDeath |
8–12 years
ⓘ
about 10–11 years ⓘ |
| faceMorphology | prognathic face ⓘ |
| geologicAge | about 1.5–1.6 million years old ⓘ |
| geologicPeriod | Early Pleistocene ⓘ |
| growthPatternInsight | informs debate on whether early Homo grew more like apes or modern humans ⓘ |
| influenced |
interpretations of sexual dimorphism in early Homo
ⓘ
models of early Homo thermoregulation and body shape in hot climates ⓘ reconstructions of Homo ergaster locomotor biomechanics ⓘ |
| locomotion | obligate bipedalism ⓘ |
| pelvisMorphology | narrow, tall pelvis ⓘ |
| postcranialProportions | modern human-like limb proportions ⓘ |
| preservationStatus | exceptionally well-preserved ⓘ |
| sex | male ⓘ |
| significance |
crucial for understanding evolution of human body proportions
ⓘ
evidence for efficient long-distance walking and possibly running ⓘ important for reconstructing early human life history and growth rates ⓘ key evidence for body size increase in early Homo ⓘ one of the most complete early hominin skeletons ever found ⓘ |
| skeletonCompleteness | nearly complete skeleton ⓘ |
| taxon |
Homo erectus
ⓘ
Homo erectus ⓘ
surface form:
Homo ergaster
|
| thoraxShape | barrel-shaped chest ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Turkana Boy fossil Description of subject: The Turkana Boy fossil is an exceptionally well-preserved nearly complete skeleton of a Homo erectus (or Homo ergaster) youth from about 1.6 million years ago that has provided crucial insights into early human growth and anatomy.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
Turkana Boy
this entity surface form:
Nariokotome Boy
subject surface form:
Turkana Boy
this entity surface form:
KNM-WT 15000