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赞比亚布罗肯希尔人类头骨的断代与进化地位
2020-04-02 17:27

英国自然历史博物馆Chris Stringer、澳大利亚格里菲斯大学Rainer Grün等研究人员对来自赞比亚布罗肯希尔的人类头骨进行了断代和进化定位。相关论文于2020年4月1日在线发表于《自然》杂志。

据研究人员介绍,来自布罗肯希尔(卡布韦)的头盖骨是在1921年一个金属矿开采期间的洞穴(位于现在的赞比亚)里找到的。它是人类化石中保存最完好的头骨之一,最初被认为是罗德西亚人的模式标本,但现在又常被归属于海德堡人分类。然而,此后的原始遗址已被完全开采,尽管这个头盖骨常被认为有50万年的历史,但对其研究的不完整阻碍了对其准确定代和人类进化中的定位。
 
研究人员直接对头骨进行了分析,发现其最佳年龄预测为299±25千年(平均±2σ)。结果表明,晚更新世的非洲包含多个同时期的人族谱系(即智人、海德堡人/罗德西亚人和纳莱迪人),与欧亚大陆相似,同时代地发现了尼安德特人、丹尼索瓦人、佛罗勒斯人、吕宋人,可能还有海德堡人和直立人。年龄预测还引发了关于非洲人的进化模式以及海德堡人/罗德西亚人是否是当前人类直系祖先的进一步疑问。
 
附:英文原文

Title: Dating the skull from Broken Hill, Zambia, and its position in human evolution

Author: Rainer Grn, Alistair Pike, Frank McDermott, Stephen Eggins, Graham Mortimer, Maxime Aubert, Lesley Kinsley, Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Michael Rumsey, Christiane Denys, James Brink, Tara Clark, Chris Stringer

Issue&Volume: 2020-04-01

Abstract: The cranium from Broken Hill (Kabwe) was recovered from cave deposits in 1921, during metal ore mining in what is now Zambia1. It is one of the best-preserved skulls of a fossil hominin, and was initially designated as the type specimen of Homo rhodesiensis, but recently it has often been included in the taxon Homo heidelbergensis2,3,4. However, the original site has since been completely quarried away, and—although the cranium is often estimated to be around 500 thousand years old5,6,7—its unsystematic recovery impedes its accurate dating and placement in human evolution. Here we carried out analyses directly on the skull and found a best age estimate of 299 ± 25 thousand years (mean ± 2σ). The result suggests that later Middle Pleistocene Africa contained multiple contemporaneous hominin lineages (that is, Homo sapiens8,9, H. heidelbergensis/H. rhodesiensis and Homo naledi10,11), similar to Eurasia, where Homo neanderthalensis, the Denisovans, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonensis and perhaps also Homo heidelbergensis and Homo erectus12 were found contemporaneously. The age estimate also raises further questions about the mode of evolution of H. sapiens in Africa and whether H. heidelbergensis/H. rhodesiensis was a direct ancestor of our species13,14.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2165-4

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2165-4

Nature:《自然》,创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团,最新IF:69.504
官方网址:http://www.nature.com/
投稿链接:http://www.nature.com/authors/submit_manuscript.html


本期文章:《自然》:Online/在线发表

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