Copyright © 1998 by McGraw-Hill, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. The entire contents or parts of this Update may be reproduced for use with Physical Anthropology, Sixth Edition, or Physical Anthropology: The Core, second edition, by Philip L. Stein and Bruce M. Rowe, provided each reproduction bears the copyright notice. The publisher's written permission must be obtained for other use.
See Physical Anthropology, 6th edition, Chapter 16, pages 406-416;
Physical Anthropology: The Core, 2nd edition, Chapter 11, pages
257-270.
The superrobust australopithecine Australopithecus boisei is known from a number of fossils. The first specimen (OH 5) was discovered by Mary Leakey in 1959 in Olduvai Gorge. Recently a report was published on a 1993 find from the site of Konso, Ethiopia. The Konso skull, KGA 10-525, is one of several fossils recovered from this site. It is the only specimen of A. boisei known to date that includes both parts of the cranium and mandible. The skull is that of a relatively old male with a cranial capacity of about 545 cubic centimeters. Eight other specimens have been catalogued.
The Konso skull expands the geographical range of this species, that up to now was only known from sites in the Turkana Basin and further south at Olduvai Gorge, Peninj, and Chesowanja. The skull and other australopithecine material from the site show that there is a significant range of variation present among specimens that have been placed into this species.
All of the A. boisei material has been recovered from the KGA 10 locality which is thought to represent part of an alluvial fan extending into a lake. Previous A. boisei remains have been associated with indicators of wet, wooded habitats. The new material has been found in deposits associated with fossils of animals that lived in grassland habitats.
The fossil beds at Konso were first discovered in 1991. The site has yielded evidence of remains of A. boisei, H. erectus and Acheulean tools that date from the same period of time. The A. boisei material has been recovered from tuffs dated between 1.41 and 1.43 million years B.P. as determined by 40Ar/39Ar dating. Since most of the other A. boisei specimens date between 2.2 and 1.6 million years B.P., the new skull becomes the most recent specimen of this species.
Reference: G. Suwa et al., "The First Skull of Australopithecus boisei," Nature, 389 (2 October 1997), 489-492.