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Homo habilis was discovered in 1964 by Louis Leakey, at Olduvai Gorge. Immediately, it sparked controversy, with many scientists proclaiming it as a mere australopithecine. Since the cerebral rubicon is at 800 cc, and the brain size of H. habilis is only 650 cc, it doesn't qualify as Homo, they reasoned. To meet this challenge, Leakey decided to push back the cerebral rubicon to around 650 cc, and that is where it is now.
H. habilis lived from 2.4 to 1.5 million years ago. The skull has a distinctively rounded, human-like shape to it. There still remains the browridges, but above it is a slight forehead. Male H. habilises were 37 kg and were 1.3 meters in height, while females were smaller: 32 kg and were around 1 meter tall. There is noticeably less sexual dimorphism than in the australopithecines. There is development of Broca's area, which is associated with language abilities.
They made stone tools belonging to the Oldowan industry, which were usually made of bone or quartz. They made them in a fixed pattern, with evident forethought and a better hand-to-eye coordination. You could say that H. habilis was just a slightly more primitive version of H. rudolfensis.
Then, there is the question of whether H. habilis hunted or not. The evidence for the hunting lifestyle is stone tools found in close proximity with the dismembered remains of popular game species during that time. Thus, as the supporters reason, H. habilis must have brought down animals through group cooperation and the use of stone tools, and butchered the meat on the spot. However, there is an alternative theory, which says that H. habilis did not hunt at all. He merely scavenged the meat of dead animals after being killed by large predators or being abandoned by them (for whatever reason). Then, they quickly rushed to the spot, hacked off a few precious chunks and carried them back to a campsite. There is still another one which reasons that, because early hominids could not have been choosy about how their food was procured, they scavenged when they could and hunted when they had to. It is, in my personal opinion, the third hypothesis that is the most reasonable. However, you are free to choose whichever one you like best or believe has the most and best evidence to support it.
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