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Florisbad Skull

Coordinates: 28°46′S 26°04′E / 28.767°S 26.067°E / -28.767; 26.067
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Florisbad Skull
Common nameFlorisbad Skull
SpeciesHomo sapiens
or Homo helmei
or Homo heidelbergensis
Age259±35 ka
Place discoveredFlorisbad archaeological and paleontological site, South Africa
Date discovered1932
Discovered byThomas F. Dreyer, G. Venter[1]
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The Florisbad Skull is an important human fossil of the early Middle Stone Age, representing either late Homo heidelbergensis or early Homo sapiens. It was discovered in 1932 by T. F. Dreyer at the Florisbad site, Free State Province, South Africa.

Research history

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Discovery

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In 1835, early voortrekkers discovered a lithium spring by the Haagenstad saltpan, which was settled by Hendrik Venter. After his death, his grandson Floris commercialised the site, and Florisbad became a regionally famous bath. In 1912, during excavations into an adjacent hillock to expand the bath, workers discovered animal fossils and stone tools.[2] English professor Geo Potts and South African palaeontologist Robert Broom were sent by the National Museum, Bloemfontein, to investigate. They were able to study the material collected by Venter's wife, Martha Johanna Venter, and Broom suggested further excavation might yield human fossils.[3] In 1917, South African zoologist Thomas Frederik Dreyer made a collection of fossil animal teeth recovered from the bath gravel. He returned in 1926 with Captain Robert Egerton Helme where they discovered Sivatherium molars, and in 1928 with A. Lyle where they recovered several more fossils and stone tools. In 1932, Dreyer investigated spring vent deposits, where he discovered a partial human skull alongside more fossil animals and stone tools.[2]

The Florisbad skull was the first human fossil found in Africa directly associated with either stone tools or extinct animals.[2] Dreyer and Dutch neurologist Cornelius Ubbo Ariëns Kappers described the skull in 1935.[4][5]

Classification

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In 1935, Dreyer speculatively reconstructed the complete Florisbad Skull, and claimed that it belonged to an extremely lowly race, going so far as to classify it as a new species and subgenus as Homo (Africanthropus) helmei — naming it after Captain Helme. Kappers, on the other hand, drew parallels between the braincase of the Florisbad Skull and "H. sapiens fossilis" (Cro-Magnon), and preferred to consider it a type of modern human.[4]

Dreyer lent the skull to South African anthropologist Matthew Robertson Drennan for study, who published a paper soon after. Drennan believed that, while the face resembled the Zambian Kabwe 1 (the "Rhodesian Man", classified as a primitive stock of modern human), the braincase better aligned with Neanderthals. He was also influenced by the opinion of South African archaeologist Astley John Hilary Goodwin, who identified a Mousterian-like stone tool culture at the site and around South Africa — a culture which is associated with European Neanderthals. Drennan opted to classify the Florisbad Skull as "H. florisbadensis (helmei)", characterising it as an ancient African Neanderthal variant.[4] In 1936, Dreyer published a correction after comparing the Florisbad braincase with that of a modern South Africa bushman, and reconsidered it as an early representative of the Bushman Race. Nonetheless, in 1937, Drennan reaffirmed that the Florisbad Skull measurements, "cry out for a Neanderthal interpretation."[6]

That same year, Scottish anatomist Alexander Galloway criticised Drennan's focus on skull measurements over anatomical landmarks. He instead compared the Florisbad Skull to the "ferocious appearance" of the male Aboriginal Australian skull, as well as the South African Middle Pleistocene Boskop Man (at the time considered to be an ancestor of South African bushmen), remarking that, "there are so many features which are common to all three that two-thirds of the Florisbad features are encountered in the modern Australian skull and two-thirds in the Boskop." He considered the Florisbad Skull a proto-Australian, along with specimens such as Rhodesian Man and the Javan Solo Man. He also raised the possibility that it was an ancestor of the Javan Wadjak Man, which British anatomist Arthur Keith had earlier characterised, "as an offshoot from the stem which afterwards diverged into Australian and Negro types."[7] In 1958, South African palaeontologist Ronald Singer compared the Florisbad Skull with the recently-discovered South African Saldanha Man, and similarly grouped them with the Rhodesian Man as ancestors of modern bushmen.[8]

In 1978, American biological anthropologist G. Phillip Rightmire made his own reconstruction of the Florisbad Skull without speculating on the dimensions of missing pieces, and found that it is substantially distinct from any living population. He did not believe the Florisbad Skull, or any other "archaic H. sapiens", were ancestral to one specific population. He classified it as part of the same stock as Kabwe 1 (at this point, H. sapiens rhodesiensis) and possibly the Ethiopian Omo remains.[8]

Clarke (1985) compared it to Laetoli Hominid 18 and Omo 2, which are now considered early anatomically modern human (H. sapiens) fossils. The difficulty of placing the fossil in either H. heidelbergensis or H. sapiens prompted McBrearty and Brooks (2000) to revive the designation H. helmei.[1] In 2016 Chris Stringer argued that the Florisbad Skull, along with the Jebel Irhoud and Eliye Springs specimens, belong to an archaic or "early" form of Homo sapiens.[9] The Florisbad Skull was also classified as Homo sapiens by Hublin et al. (in 2017), in part on the basis of the similar Jebel Irhoud finds from Morocco.[10][11] Scerri et al. (2018) adduce the fossil as evidence for "African multiregionalism", the view of a complex speciation of H. sapiens widely dispersed across Africa, with substantial hybridization between H. sapiens and more divergent hominins in different regions.[12] Lahr and Mounier (2019) also classify the Florisbad Skull as an example of early H. sapiens, which they suggest arose between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago from the merging of populations in East and South Africa.[13][14]

Description

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The Florisbad Skull belonged to a specimen within the size range of modern humans, with a brain volume larger than modern averages, at 1,440 cm3. The skull was also found with Middle Stone Age tools.[15]

The fossil skull is a fragment; preserved are the right side of the face, most of the frontal bone, and some of the maxilla, along with portions of the roof and sidewalls. A single, upper right, third molar was also found with the adult skull.

The skull also showed extensive porotic hyperostosis as well as a large number of healed lesions, including pathological drainage or vascular tracts. There are also a couple of large puncture marks and scratch-like marks which may reflect hyena chewing.[16]

Based on enamel samples from the tooth found with the skull, the fossil has been directly dated by electron spin resonance dating to around between 259±35 ka (between 294,000 and 224,000 years old).[16]

Context

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Further information: Florisbad archaeological and paleontological site

The partial cranium is part of an assemblage of mostly carnivore prey remains, caught in vertical spring vents. It shows damage by hyena chewing. The spring vents were later sealed by deposits. "Peat II" is a deposit of dark organic clay representing a Middle Stone Age land surface, showing a human occupation horizon dated 121±6 ka.[16]

The wider Florisbad site has also produced a large and diverse fauna. The assemblage including micro-vertebrates from springhares, rabbits, rodents and reptiles has informed researchers on the paleoenvironment of the interior of South Africa in the Middle Pleistocene. The large mammal component of the site suggests an open grassland with a body of water in the immediate vicinity.[17] Although many specimens are dated by comparisons of faunal assemblages, this method does not prove to have accurate chronological resolution for much of the last million years.[18]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Schwartz, Jeffrey H.; Tattersall, Ian (2005-03-11). The Human Fossil Record, Craniodental Morphology of Genus Homo (Africa and Asia). John Wiley & Sons. p. 79–81. ISBN 9780471326441..
  2. ^ a b c Hoffman, A. C. (1955). "Important contributions of the Orange Free State to our knowledge of primitive man". South African Journal of Science: 165–167.
  3. ^ Broom, R. (1913). "Man contemporaneous with extinct animals in South Africa". Annals of the South African Museum. 12: 13. doi:10.5962/bhl.part.12339.
  4. ^ a b c Drenhan, M. R. (1935). "The florisbad skull". South African Journal of Science. 32 (07): 601–602. doi:10.10520/AJA00382353_8006.
  5. ^ Dreyer, T. F. (1938). "The archaeology of the Florisbad deposits". Argeologiese Navorsing van die Nasionale Museum Bloemfontein. 1: 65–77.
  6. ^ Drennan, M. R. (1937). "The Florisbad Skull and Brain Cast". Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. 25 (1): 103–114. doi:10.1080/00359193709519748. ISSN 0035-919X.
  7. ^ Galloway, Alexander (1937). "The nature and status of the Florisbad skull as revealed by its nonmetrical features". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 23 (1): 1–17. doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330230103. ISSN 1096-8644.
  8. ^ a b Rightmire, G. P. (1978). "Florisbad and human population succession in Southern Africa". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 48 (4): 475–486. doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330480406. ISSN 1096-8644.
  9. ^ Stringer, C. (2016). "The origin and evolution of Homo sapiens". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences. 371 (1698): 20150237. doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0237. PMC 4920294. PMID 27298468.
  10. ^ Sample, Ian (7 June 2017). "Oldest Homo sapiens bones ever found shake foundations of the human story". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
  11. ^ Hublin, Jean-Jacques; Ben-Ncer, Abdelouahed; Bailey, Shara E.; Freidline, Sarah E.; Neubauer, Simon; Skinner, Matthew M.; Bergmann, Inga; Le Cabec, Adeline; Benazzi, Stefano; Harvati, Katerina; Gunz, Philipp (2017). "New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens" (PDF). Nature. 546 (7657): 289–292. Bibcode:2017Natur.546..289H. doi:10.1038/nature22336. PMID 28593953. S2CID 205255859.
  12. ^ "Other early H. sapiens fossils from Florisbad in South Africa (~260 ka), Omo Kibish (~195 ka) and Herto (~160 ka), both in Ethiopia, are morphologically diverse. This diversity has led some researchers to propose that fossils such as Jebel Irhoud and Florisbad actually represent a more primitive species called 'H. helmei', using the binomen given to the Florisbad partial cranium in 1935. ...However, we view H. sapiens as an evolving lineage with deep African roots, and therefore prefer to recognize such fossils as part of the diversity shown by early members of the H. sapiens clade." Scerri, EML; Thomas, MG; Manica, A; Gunz, P; Stock, JT; Stringer, C; Grove, M; Groucutt, HS; Timmermann, A; Rightmire, GP; d'Errico, F; Tryon, CA; Drake, NA; Brooks, AS; Dennell, RW; Durbin, R; Henn, BM; Lee-Thorp, J; Petraglia, MD; Thompson, JC; Scally, A; Chikhi, L (2018). "Did Our Species Evolve in Subdivided Populations across Africa, and Why Does It Matter?". Trends Ecol Evol. 33 (8): 582–594. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2018.05.005. PMC 6092560. PMID 30007846.
  13. ^ Mounier, Aurélien; Lahr, Marta (2019). "Deciphering African late middle Pleistocene hominin diversity and the origin of our species". Nature Communications. 10 (1): 3406. Bibcode:2019NatCo..10.3406M. doi:10.1038/s41467-019-11213-w. PMC 6736881. PMID 31506422.
  14. ^ Zimmer, Carl (10 September 2019). "Scientists Find the Skull of Humanity's Ancestor — on a Computer - By comparing fossils and CT scans, researchers say they have reconstructed the skull of the last common forebear of modern humans". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  15. ^ Rightmire, G. Philip (2009-09-22). "Middle and later Pleistocene hominins in Africa and Southwest Asia". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (38): 16046–16050. Bibcode:2009PNAS..10616046R. doi:10.1073/pnas.0903930106. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 2752549. PMID 19581595. "Homo helmei". Bradshaw Foundation. Retrieved 2015-11-18.
  16. ^ a b c Grün, Rainer; Brink, James S.; Spooner, Nigel A.; Taylor, Lois; Stringer, Chris B.; Franciscus, Robert G.; Murray, Andrew S. (1996-08-08). "Direct dating of Florisbad hominid". Nature. 382 (6591): 500–501. Bibcode:1996Natur.382..500G. doi:10.1038/382500a0. PMID 8700221. S2CID 4435718..
  17. ^ Lewis, Patrick J.; Brink, James S.; Kennedy, Alicia M.; Campbell, Timothy L. (2011). "Examination of the Florisbad microvertebrates". South African Journal of Science. 107 (7/8). doi:10.4102/sajs.v107i7/8.613.
  18. ^ Millard, A.R. (2008). "A critique of the chronometric evidence for hominid fossils: I. Africa and the Near East 500-50 ka" (PDF). J Hum Evol. 54 (6): 848–874. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2007.11.002. PMID 18201747.
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28°46′S 26°04′E / 28.767°S 26.067°E / -28.767; 26.067

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