Asfaw Berhane, Gilbert W Henry, Beyene Yonas, Hart William K, Renne Paul R, WoldeGabriel Giday, Vrba Elisabeth S, White Tim D
Rift Valley Research Service, P.O. Box 5717, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Nature. 2002 Mar 21;416(6878):317-20. doi: 10.1038/416317a.
The genesis, evolution and fate of Homo erectus have been explored palaeontologically since the taxon's recognition in the late nineteenth century. Current debate is focused on whether early representatives from Kenya and Georgia should be classified as a separate ancestral species ('H. ergaster'), and whether H. erectus was an exclusively Asian species lineage that went extinct. Lack of resolution of these issues has obscured the place of H. erectus in human evolution. A hominid calvaria and postcranial remains recently recovered from the Dakanihylo Member of the Bouri Formation, Middle Awash, Ethiopia, bear directly on these issues. These approximately 1.0-million-year (Myr)-old Pleistocene sediments contain abundant early Acheulean stone tools and a diverse vertebrate fauna that indicates a predominantly savannah environment. Here we report that the 'Daka' calvaria's metric and morphological attributes centre it firmly within H. erectus. Daka's resemblance to Asian counterparts indicates that the early African and Eurasian fossil hominids represent demes of a widespread palaeospecies. Daka's anatomical intermediacy between earlier and later African fossils provides evidence of evolutionary change. Its temporal and geographic position indicates that African H. erectus was the ancestor of Homo sapiens.
自19世纪末该分类单元被识别以来，古生物学家一直在从古生物学角度探索直立人的起源、演化及命运。当前的争论焦点在于，来自肯尼亚和格鲁吉亚的早期代表是否应被归类为一个单独的祖先物种（“匠人”），以及直立人是否是一个已灭绝的纯亚洲物种谱系。这些问题尚未得到解决，这使得直立人在人类进化中的地位变得模糊不清。最近在埃塞俄比亚中阿瓦什地区的布尔地层达卡尼希洛段发现的一具原始人类头盖骨及颅后骨骼化石，直接关系到这些问题。这些距今约100万年的更新世沉积物中含有丰富的早期阿舍利石器和多样的脊椎动物群，表明这里主要是稀树草原环境。我们在此报告，“达卡”头盖骨的测量和形态特征使其明确无误地属于直立人。达卡头盖骨与亚洲同类化石的相似之处表明，早期非洲和欧亚大陆的化石原始人类代表了一个广泛分布的古物种的不同种群。达卡在早期和晚期非洲化石之间的解剖学中间形态提供了进化演变的证据。其所处的时间和地理位置表明，非洲直立人是智人的祖先。
