Homo habilis ("Handy man") is the scientific name usually assigned to the earliest species of the human genus. Louis Leakey assigned this name because this species was the first to make and use stone tools. The tools, which consisted of little more than stones from which sharp-edged flakes were struck, are called Oldowan because they were first found in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. H. habilis lived in eastern Africa between about 2.5 million and about 1.5 million years ago.

It is far from clear that the specimens usually assigned to Homo habilis represent a single species of hominin. Many anthropologists consider the specimens to represent at least two species: the larger brained Homo rudolfensis (named after Lake Rudolf, near which many specimens have been found) and the smaller brained H. habilis. Some specimens show variation in characteristics other than brain size. For example, Olduvai Hominid 62 (OH 62) had relatively longer arms and shorter legs than other H. habilis, and may therefore represent yet another, unnamed species. However, the variation in brain size within H. habilis, broadly defined, is less than the differences between males and females of some species of apes, which raises the possibility that H. habilis was a single species. For convenience, the more inclusive definition of H. habilis will be used for the remainder of this entry.

It is clear that one of the genetic lineages within H. habilis was the ancestor of later humans (like Homo erectus; Homo ergaster; Homo Heidelbergensis), but anthropologists do not know which one. Specimens usually assigned to H. rudolfensis had more modern skull characteristics, but specimens usually assigned to H. habilis had more modern dental characteristics. Some populations of H. habilis coexisted with the earliest populations of later Homo species, such as H. ergaster. It is also clear that H. habilis evolved from an earlier ancestor, although which one is also unclear. All of the gracile australopithecines may have been extinct by the time H. habilis became common, but the robust australopithecines coexisted with H. habilis. H. habilis may therefore represent a state of evolution, transitional between australopithecines and later humans, rather than a single species. . .

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