The Siwalik Hills have yielded what is perhaps the world’s most ancient early hominid. In December 1992 I discovered a hominid
mandibular ramus and a hominid femur in association with stone tools in the Tatrot Formation of the upper Siwalik. The discovery
was made from the Tatrot Formation exposed at Khetpurali Village in Haryana, North India. The teeth are bunodont, having a
lingually inclined wear plane. The P3 is molariform and single rooted. The femur is platymeric and has medullary stenosis.
The stone tools are chopper types. Magnetostratigraphic dating of the Tatrot Formation ranges from 2.47 Myr at the top to
5.44 Myr at the base. The hominid — yielding bed is dated at 3.40 Myr — Middle Pliocene. The palaeoecology of the Tatrot Formation
suggests open savannah. The discovery will cast new light on the origin and migration of the early hominids, and hopefully
will contribute to a solution of the 100-year-old dispute about the African or Asian origin of humans.
Keywords Early hominid - Middle Pliocene - Siwalik Hills - South Asia