Small Mid-Pleistocene Hominin Associated with East African Acheulean Technology
Richard Potts,1,2*
Anna K. Behrensmeyer,3
Alan Deino,4
Peter Ditchfield,5
Jennifer Clark1
Hominin fossils from the African mid-Pleistocene are rare despite abundant Acheulean tools in Africa and apparently African-derived hominins in Eurasia between 1.0 and 0.5 million years ago (Ma). Here we describe an African fossil cranium constrained by 40Ar/39Ar analyses, magnetostratigraphy, and sedimentary features to 0.97 to 0.90 Ma, and stratigraphically associated with Acheulean handaxes. Although the cranium represents possibly the smallest adult or near-adult known between 1.7 and 0.5 Ma, it retains features observed in larger Homo erectus individuals, yet shows a distinct suite of traits indicative of wide population variation in the hominins of this period.
1 Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560–0112, USA.
2 Division of Paleontology, National Museums of Kenya, P.O. Box 40658, Nairobi, Kenya.
3 Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA.
4 Berkeley Geochronology Center, 2455 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709, USA.
5 Research Laboratory for Archaeology, University of Oxford, 6 Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3QJ, UK.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: potts.rick{at}nmnh.si.edu
