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Hofmeyr: A Summary Perspective on the Context and Morphology of a Late Pleistocene Human Skull from South Africa

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

There is a seeming consensus among geneticists and paleontologists that Homo sapiens emerged in Africa during the Middle Pleistocene, with most genetic studies indicating that the deepest human lineages can be identified among the indigenous populations of southern Africa. The African fossil record is very spotty from MIS 7 through MIS 4, with a slight improvement in MIS 3. MIS 3 is of significance for our understanding of human evolution in Africa. This was a period of extreme climatic variability over most of South Africa, and this was accompanied by greater lithic variability in the archaeological record with the transition from the Middle to the Later Stone Age. Among the human fossils from MIS 3 is the partial skull from Hofmeyr, South Africa. The contributions that comprise the present volume reveal the tremendous amount of information that has been painstakingly extracted from this specimen. These chapters serve to place the Hofmeyr skull in the context of Late Pleistocene human evolution.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationVertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media B.V.
Pages237-251
Number of pages15
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022

Publication series

NameVertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology
ISSN (Print)1877-9077
ISSN (Electronic)1877-9085

Keywords

  • Archaeology
  • Environment
  • Human fossil
  • Later Stone Age (LSA)
  • Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3
  • Middle Stone Age (MSA)
  • Variability

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