Early Pleistocene Homo erectus fossils from Konso, southern Ethiopia

Bibliographic Data

ID6135632
AuthorsGen Suwa (0000-0003-3880-2458, The University Museum, The University of Tokyo, corresponding author), Berhane Asfaw (Rift Valley Research Service, Addis Ababa), Yohannes Haile-Selassie (0000-0001-6423-9705, Cleveland Museum of Natural History), Tim D White (0000-0003-1266-7489, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology), Tim White (0000-0003-3508-2782, Human Evolution Research Center, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California at Berkeley), Shigehiro Katoh (0000-0002-7553-6518, Division of Earth Sciences), Giday Woldegabriel (Los Alamos National Laboratory), William K Hart (0000-0002-7309-5560, Miami University), Hideo Nakaya (Kagoshima University), Yonas Beyene (0000-0002-1507-8084, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Authority for Research and Conservation of the Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture, Addis Ababa)
Year2007
Volume115
Issue2
Pages133-151
Publication date2007-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropological Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0918-7960 • E-ISSN: 1348-8570
PublisherAnthropological Society of Nippon (PUBLISHER • JP)
DOI10.1537/ase.061203
OpenAlexW2074077575
LanguageEN
Citations received42
References cited70

Homo erectus has been broadly defined to include fossils from Africa, Asia, and possibly Europe, or restricted to a supposedly confined Asian clade. Recently discovered fossils of H. erectus are allowing new insights into aspects of its evolution, such as the timing and mode of the species' emergence in Africa and its relationship to Asian populations. However, the currently available African record predating 1.0 Ma is poor, consisting of the Turkana basin, Olduvai and the more limited South African materials. Here, we describe and compare eight craniodental fossils of ~1.4 Ma recovered from Konso, Ethiopia, that we attribute to H. erectus. These include KGA10-1, one of the better-preserved H. erectus mandibular specimens known from eastern Africa, and other fragmentary dental and cranial remains. The Konso H. erectus fossils show a mosaic of primitive and derived features. These include a large and thick mandibular corpus, a moderately developed lateral prominence, a reduced premolar morphology, and a tendency for smaller relative sizes of the posterior molars compared with earlier Homo. In some dentognathic details, such as the lack of a buccolingually narrow M1 and the presence of double mental foramina, the Konso fossils differ from eastern African H. erectus of ≥1.5 Ma. The fragmentary cranial remains exhibit weak angular and occipital tori, and an apparently weak occipital flexion, as with the eastern African H. erectus examples known from ~1.65 to 1.2 Ma. The available evidence is consistent with the interpretation that African early H. erectus shows morphological continuity within the ~1.65 to 1.0 Ma time period, with relatively little morphological evolution prior to 1.4 Ma and advanced dentognathic gracility occurring sometime thereafter. The Konso evidence corroborates the hypothesis that the African H. erectus populations represent a variable but continuous evolutionary succession that was a likely source of multiple events of gene flow to the Eurasian continent

Biology · Evolutionary biology · Homo erectus · Molar · Pleistocene · Premolar · Evolution and Paleontology Studies · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Geology · Paleontology

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