article_snippet: Early humans living in Africa almost two million years ago came in a range of shapes and sizes, just as people do today, a new study claims.
article_snippet: this study is the first in 20 years to compare the body size of humans who lived between 1.5 million and 2.5 million years ago.
article_snippet: Early humans living in Africa almost two million years ago came in a range of shapes and sizes, just as people do today, a new study claims.
article_snippet: Nutrition and local environmental factors probably played a role in making some early humans larger than others.
article_snippet: Measurements of fossils from sites in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Georgia in eastern Europe, revealed significant regional variation in the size of early humans during the last Ice Age.
article_snippet: The main increase in body size occurred tens of thousands of years after the small, primitive human Homo erectus migrated out of Africa.
article_snippet: Measurements of fossils from sites in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Georgia in eastern Europe, revealed significant regional variation in the size of early humans during the last Ice Age.
article_snippet: Dr Stock said: 'In human evolution we see body size as one of the most important characteristics, and from examining these 'scrappier' fossils we can get a much better sense of when and where human body size diversity arose. '
article_snippet: Before 1.7 million years ago our ancestors were seldom over five foot tall or particularly heavy in body mass. '
article_snippet: When this significant size shift to much heavier, taller individuals happened, this significant size occurred primarily in one particular place - in a region called Koobi Fora in northern Kenya around 1.7 million years ago. '
article_snippet: But fossil evidence for body size now suggests the marked increase of body size variables in early Homo took place after 1.8 Million years in eastern Africa.
article_snippet: Interestingly, the study says that there was an increase in body size at the start and end of the period studied, which suggests that factors other than chronology also influenced the body size of early humans.
highlights_snippet: It is the first study in 20 years to compare the body size of humans who lived between 1.5 million and 2.5 million years ago .