Zinjanthropus

Zinjanthropus [Sp].
The name given by Professor Louis Leakey to the fossil skull of an early hominid found in Bed I at OLDUVAI GORGE, Tanzania, in July 1959. Dated to the Lower Pleistocene, about 1.75 million years ago, the skull is that of a robust Australopithecine. At one time the Zinjanthropus skull was nicknamed ‘Nutcracker Man’ because of the large size of the teeth.