Florisbad Skull

Florisbad 1 is the designation for a partially preserved fossil skull, which was discovered in 1932 in the archaeological site Florisbad in Brandfort in the then Orange Free State ( South Africa). The fossil is known in the English-speaking world as Florisbad Skull. In the first description of the find Thomas F. Dreyer named the skull after the funder of research Dreyer, RE helmets, as "Homo helmei "; the anatomist Matthew Drennan Robertson hit two years later, the term " homo florisbadensis " before.

First dated to an age of 40,000 years, in 1996 an age of 259,000 ± 35,000 years was determined for the fossil. The skull is considered due to its anatomical features as a very early archaic Homo sapiens, that is a close relative of the ancestors of anatomically modern humans.

Has been preserved of this skull almost the entire cranial vault, especially the frontal bone, on both sides of the parietal bone, the nasal bone, the right cheekbone with a fragment of the right maxilla and right wisdom tooth as well as fragments of the left maxilla. For the skull volume from 1200 to 1400 cubic centimeters has been reconstructed. The skull has a distinctive Überaugenwulst, which is, however, less pronounced than in the similar old fossils Kabwe 1 from Northern Rhodesia and Saldanha 1 from South Africa.