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Annual Review of Anthropology

Volume 50, 2021

The Earliest South African Hominids

Abstract

The earliest South African hominids (humans and their ancestral kin) belong to the genera , , and , with the oldest being a ca. 3.67 million-year-old nearly complete skeleton of (StW 573) from Sterkfontein Caves. This skeleton has provided, for the first time in almost a century of research, the full anatomy of an individual with indisputably associated skull and postcranial bones that give complete limb lengths. The three genera are also found in East Africa, but scholars have disagreed on the taxonomic assignment for some fossils owing to historical preconceptions. Here we focus on the South African representatives to help clarify these debates. The uncovering of the StW 573 skeleton in situ revealed significant clues concerning events that had affected it over time and demonstrated that the associated stalagmite flowstones cannot provide direct dating of the fossil, as they are infillings of voids caused by postdepositional collapse.

Keyword(s): Australopithecus, hominid taxonomy, Homo habilis, Paranthropus, skeleton StW 573, Sterkfontein Caves
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2021-10-21
2024-04-20
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The Earliest South African Hominids
Annual Review of Anthropology 50, 125 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-091619-124837
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