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  • Dating the skull from Broken Hill, Zambia, and its position in human evolution

    Author(s)
    Grun, Rainer
    Pike, Alistair
    McDermott, Frank
    Eggins, Stephen
    Mortimer, Graham
    Aubert, Maxime
    Kinsley, Lesley
    Joannes-Boyau, Renaud
    Rumsey, Michael
    Denys, Christiane
    Brink, James
    Clark, Tara
    Stringer, Chris
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Grun, Rainer
    Aubert, Maxime
    Clark, Tara R.
    Year published
    2020
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    The cranium from Broken Hill (Kabwe) was recovered from cave deposits in 1921, during metal ore mining in what is now Zambia1. It is one of the best-preserved skulls of a fossil hominin, and was initially designated as the type specimen of Homo rhodesiensis, but recently it has often been included in the taxon Homo heidelbergensis2,3,4. However, the original site has since been completely quarried away, and—although the cranium is often estimated to be around 500 thousand years old5,6,7—its unsystematic recovery impedes its accurate dating and placement in human evolution. Here we carried out analyses directly on the skull ...
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    The cranium from Broken Hill (Kabwe) was recovered from cave deposits in 1921, during metal ore mining in what is now Zambia1. It is one of the best-preserved skulls of a fossil hominin, and was initially designated as the type specimen of Homo rhodesiensis, but recently it has often been included in the taxon Homo heidelbergensis2,3,4. However, the original site has since been completely quarried away, and—although the cranium is often estimated to be around 500 thousand years old5,6,7—its unsystematic recovery impedes its accurate dating and placement in human evolution. Here we carried out analyses directly on the skull and found a best age estimate of 299 ± 25 thousand years (mean ± 2σ). The result suggests that later Middle Pleistocene Africa contained multiple contemporaneous hominin lineages (that is, Homo sapiens8,9, H. heidelbergensis/H. rhodesiensis and Homo naledi10,11), similar to Eurasia, where Homo neanderthalensis, the Denisovans, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonensis and perhaps also Homo heidelbergensis and Homo erectus12 were found contemporaneously. The age estimate also raises further questions about the mode of evolution of H. sapiens in Africa and whether H. heidelbergensis/H. rhodesiensis was a direct ancestor of our species13,14.
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    Journal Title
    Nature
    Volume
    580
    Issue
    7803
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2165-4
    Subject
    History, heritage and archaeology
    Science & Technology
    Multidisciplinary Sciences
    Science & Technology - Other Topics
    MODERN HUMAN ORIGINS
    U-SERIES
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/396223
    Collection
    • Journal articles

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