Palaeoscience, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086 VIC, Australia.
Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa.
Science. 2020 Apr 3;368(6486). doi: 10.1126/science.aaw7293.
Understanding the extinction of and origins of and in South Africa has been hampered by the perceived complex geological context of hominin fossils, poor chronological resolution, and a lack of well-preserved early specimens. We describe, date, and contextualize the discovery of two hominin crania from Drimolen Main Quarry in South Africa. At ~2.04 million to 1.95 million years old, DNH 152 represents the earliest definitive occurrence of , and DNH 134 represents the earliest occurrence of a cranium with clear affinities to These crania also show that , , and were contemporaneous at ~2 million years ago. This high taxonomic diversity is also reflected in non-hominin species and provides evidence of endemic evolution and dispersal during a period of climatic variability.
理解在南非灭绝的物种以及 和 的起源一直受到人类化石所处复杂地质背景、年代分辨率差以及缺乏保存完好的早期 标本的阻碍。我们描述、定年并阐述了在南非 Drimolen 主采石场发现的两个人类颅骨。DNH 152 距今约 204 万至 195 万年，代表了 的确切最早出现，而 DNH 134 则代表了与 具有明确亲缘关系的颅骨的最早出现。这些颅骨还表明，在 200 万年前， 、 和 是同时存在的。这种高分类多样性也反映在非人类物种中，并提供了在气候多变时期内特有进化和扩散的证据。
