The Tool Desk
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What did the study find?
In “Early humans and the balance of power: Homo habilis as prey,” published September 16, 2025, in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Marina Vegara-Riquelme, Enrique Baquedano, and Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo analyzed two fossils: OH 7 and OH 65, both from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. The authors concluded that leopard tooth marks are the most likely explanation for damage on both specimens. Read the study.
OH 7: a juvenile from about 1.84–1.85 million years ago
OH 7 is the juvenile holotype—the specimen used to define the species Homo habilis. It was found at the FLK NN locality. The relevant horizon dates to approximately 1.84–1.85 million years ago. The authors report two tooth pits and crenulated breakage on the mandible, consistent with damage to fresh, or “green,” bone.
OH 65: an adult from a separate locality
OH 65 is an adult maxilla from another Bed I locality. Its locality has a reported minimum age of 1.785 million years. The authors identified a tooth pit on the maxilla and attributed the mark most likely to a leopard.
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How did researchers identify the predator?
The team photographed the marks and used computer-vision and deep-learning methods to compare them with tooth marks made by different carnivore taxa. For OH 7, the paper reports classification probabilities greater than 0.90 in a joint comparison involving five carnivore taxa. That figure is the model’s reported classification result for this specimen; it is not the probability that leopards ate H. habilis generally.
Computer classification offers a way to compare small, sometimes hard-to-distinguish marks systematically. But the conclusion still concerns the marks on these particular fossils. It should not be confused with a measured rate of leopard attacks, nor does a model classification by itself establish how common such encounters were.
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Does this mean leopards “dominated” Homo habilis?
No—not as a population-wide conclusion. The study supports leopard predation and consumption in two fossil cases. It does not measure how often H. habilis was preyed upon, establish leopards as the species’ principal predator, or demonstrate a general predator–prey hierarchy. Extending the two cases to the wider species depends on whether OH 7 and OH 65 were representative rather than unusual individuals.
The authors describe the implication this way: “The implications of this are major, since it shows that H. habilis was still more of a prey than a predator.” That is their interpretation of the evidence, not a population-level statistic. A careful takeaway is that these fossils suggest H. habilis remained vulnerable to leopard predation.
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Does the finding change who made Oldowan tools?
It adds a caution to an older, simple story in which H. habilis is treated as both the maker of Oldowan tools and a dominant predator. The study revisits the traditional attribution of Oldowan tools and butchery to H. habilis, noting that fossils and artifacts found in the same strata do not prove that this species made the tools.
Other hominins, including forms similar to Homo erectus and Paranthropus, were present. Evidence that hominins processed animal carcasses at archaeological sites does not, on its own, identify which hominin did the processing. The study offers an alternative scenario, but it does not establish the toolmaker’s identity.
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What the fossils can—and cannot—tell us
- Supported by the study: tooth damage on OH 7 and OH 65 is most consistent with leopard involvement, according to the authors’ analysis.
- Not established: how frequently leopards preyed on H. habilis or whether they were its principal predator.
- Still unresolved: which hominin made particular Oldowan tools or processed carcasses at sites where several hominins may have been present.
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