A one-million-year-old Homo cranium from the Danakil (Afar) Depression of Eritrea

Ernesto Abbate (), Andrea Albianelli, Augusto Azzaroli, Marco Benvenuti, Berhane Tesfamariam, Piero Bruni, Nicola Cipriani, Ronald J. Clarke, Giovanni Ficcarelli, Roberto Macchiarelli, Giovanni Napoleone, Mauro Papini, Lorenzo Rook, Mario Sagri, Tewelde Medhin Tecle, Danilo Torre and Igor Villa
Additional contact information
Ernesto Abbate: Università di Firenze
Andrea Albianelli: Università di Firenze
Augusto Azzaroli: Museo di Storia Naturale, Sezione di Geologia e Paleontologia, Università di Firenze
Marco Benvenuti: Università di Firenze
Berhane Tesfamariam: Eritrea National Museum
Piero Bruni: Università di Firenze
Nicola Cipriani: Università di Firenze
Ronald J. Clarke: Palaeo-Anthropology Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School
Giovanni Ficcarelli: Università di Firenze
Roberto Macchiarelli: Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico L. Pigorini, Sezione di Antropologia
Giovanni Napoleone: Università di Firenze
Mauro Papini: Università di Firenze
Lorenzo Rook: Università di Firenze
Mario Sagri: Università di Firenze
Tewelde Medhin Tecle: Ministry of Energy, Water and Mineral Resources
Danilo Torre: Museo di Storia Naturale, Sezione di Geologia e Paleontologia, Università di Firenze
Igor Villa: Mineralogisches Institut, Universität Bern

Nature, 1998, vol. 393, issue 6684, 458-460

Abstract: Abstract One of the most contentious topics in the study of human evolution is that of the time, place and mode of origin of Homo sapiens1,2,3. The discovery in the Northern Danakil (Afar) Depression, Eritrea, of a well-preserved Homo cranium with a mixture of characters typical of H. erectus and H. sapiens contributes significantly to this debate. The cranium was found in a succession of fluvio-deltaic and lacustrine deposits and is associated with a rich mammalian fauna of early to early-middle Pleistocene age. A magnetostratigraphic survey indicates two reversed and two normal magnetozones. The layer in which the cranium was found is near the top of the lower normal magnetozone, which is identified as the Jaramillo subchron. Consequently, the human remains can be dated at ∼1 million years before present.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/30954 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:393:y:1998:i:6684:d:10.1038_30954

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/30954

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().