article_snippet: Researcher Dr Jay Stock, from Cambridge University's Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, said: 'If someone asked you 'are modern humans six foot tall and 70kg?'
article_snippet: you'd say 'well, some are, but many people aren't, and what we're starting to show is that this diversification happened really early in human evolution.'
article_snippet: However, almost all studied… groups include smaller and larger individuals and assessing sex based on the isolated and fragmentary postcranial remains of early Homo is nearly impossible,’ almost all studied… groups say in the study.
article_snippet: Another possibility, thought to be less likely, is that there were numerous species belonging to the human family Homo that varied in appearance.
article_snippet: Fossils show that Homo erectus, which averaged less than five foot in height and weighed less than eight stone, was living in Georgia 1.77 million years ago.
article_snippet: The scientists, whose findings are reported in the Journal of Human Evolution, developed a method of calculating the height and body mass of individuals from small fossil fragments, some no bigger than toes.
article_snippet: But fossil fragments have now shown a richer variety of sizes and this may not be the case.
highlights_snippet: Experts developed a method of calculating the height and body mass of individuals from small fossil fragments, some no bigger than toes .
  
highlights_snippet: This suggests body size is not a fixed characteristic of a species .
  