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 pd èrssion must be obtained for other use.
See Physical Anthropology, 6th edition, Chapter 19, pages 490-492; Physical Anthropology: The Core, 2nd edition, Chapter 13, pages 324-327.
A major issue in paleoanthropology revolves around the origins of Homo sapiens. A recent discovery of a skull from Eritrea, in east Africa, shows a mixture of H. erectus and H. sapiens features from the very early date of arouneXêre million years ago. The site is near the village of Buia, Eritrea, that is located in the Northern Danakil Depression. The fossil-bearing stratum is known as the Danakil Formation, a layer over one thousand meters thick. Associated fossils suggest that the hominid fossil-bearing material dates from early to early middle Pleistocene. Dating based on the periodic reversals of the earth's magnetic field places the strata at around one million years old.
Between 1995 and 1997, the site yielded a!à|rly complete cranium (UA 31), two pelvic fragments (UA 173), and two adult lower incisors (UA 222 and 369). The cranium includes most of the braincase with the exception of the basicranium and parts of the facial skeleton. Most of the teeth are missing; only some of the tooth-roots remain.
The skull has not as yet been cleaned and reconstructed, so only a preliminary description has been published. Information about the pelvic fragments and teeth have yet to be described.
Ti ¥}ranium exhibits a mosaic of features, some of which, such as the high position of the greatest width of the parietals, is typical of H. sapiens. Yet the low cranial capacity (750-800 cubic centimeters) and long oval-shaped braincase associated with large browridges bear a resemblance with other African fossils most often classified as H. erectus and H. ergaster. The presence of the H. sapiens features suggests that this species may have begun to evolve in Africa about one million years ago, earlier than! àqerally accepted.
Reference: E. Abbate, et al., "A One-million-year-old Homo Cranium from the Danakil (Afar) Depression of Eritrea," Nature, 393 (4 June 1998), 458-460.