Late Pleistocene Human Skull from Hofmeyr, South Africa, and Modern Human Origins

doi:10.1126/science.1136294

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Late Pleistocene Human Skull from Hofmeyr, South Africa, and Modern Human Origins

F. E. Grine,¹^* R. M. Bailey,² K. Harvati,³ R. P. Nathan,⁴ A. G. Morris,⁵ G. M. Henderson,⁶ I. Ribot,⁷ A. W. G. Pike⁸

The lack of Late Pleistocene human fossils from sub-SaharanAfrica has limited paleontological testing of competing modelsof recent human evolution. We have dated a skull from Hofmeyr,South Africa, to 36.2 ± 3.3 thousand years ago througha combination of optically stimulated luminescence and uranium-seriesdating methods. The skull is morphologically modern overallbut displays some archaic features. Its strongest morphometricaffinities are with Upper Paleolithic (UP) Eurasians ratherthan recent, geographically proximate people. The Hofmeyr craniumis consistent with the hypothesis that UP Eurasians descendedfrom a population that emigrated from sub-Saharan Africa inthe Late Pleistocene.

¹ Departments of Anthropology and Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794–4364, USA.
² School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK.
³ Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
⁴ Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK.
⁵ Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Observatory 7925, Cape Town, South Africa.
⁶ Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PR, UK.
⁷ Département d'Anthropologie, Université de Montréal, CP 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada.
⁸ Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UU, UK.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: fgrine{at}notes.cc.sunysb.edu

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