Hofmeyr Skull

The Hofmeyr Skull is the fossil almost completely preserved the skull of an adult modern humans (Homo sapiens). He was found in 1952 near the town of Hofmeyr in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province. The skull was brought to light in the dry river bed of the Vlekpoort River ( 31 ° 34 ' S, 25 ° 58' O 31.56666666666725.966666666667 ), more bone finds or archaeological artifacts are not aware of this place. The exact reference is no longer accessible as it disappeared under silt after a dam was built downstream. The importance of the skull for the phylogeny of the people was not recognized until more than 50 years after its discovery. At this time, however, various parts of the skull were already lost.

Already in the 1960s, you had - probably to be dated to the Fund - a piece of the parietal bone removed, but no age determination has been published. It was not until the beginning of 2007 appeared a study by an international panel researchers who dated the Hofmeyr skull on an age of about 36,000 ± 3000 years. Using a new dating method, which was developed by team member Richard Bailey and his colleagues from the University of Oxford, the researchers had examined how much ionizing radiation had been absorbed by sand grains that filled the skull and from this developed age.

The recent investigation of the Hofmeyr skull rendered at the same time provide important insights into the morphology of the Upper Paleolithic (Late Stone Age ) population of Homo sapiens in southern Africa. The skull has according to the study on a very large similarity with approximately equal old skulls from Europe. It differs greatly from the skulls of sub-Saharan Africans living today, including the Khoisan; also it differs from all known, recent archaeological skeletal remains from the region. The researchers suggest this special status as an independent confirmation of the genetic studies on the spread of the people who point out that the modern human from sub-Saharan Africa around 40,000 years ago from the old world populated (Out - of-Africa theory ). " From this population, the ancestors of all people alive today are descended ," team leader Frederick E. Grine was quoted in a press release of the Max Planck Society.

Due to the dating of the Fund closed at the same time a void in the Sub-Saharan African fossils that are found to Homo sapiens. Previously, only finds were known, which are either 70,000 or only about 15,000 years old.