Brief communication: a new Pleistocene hominid-bearing locality at Hoedjiespunt, South Africa.
HDP1 is an archaeological and faunal site located on the Hoedjiespunt peninsula at Saldanha Bay, South Africa, that has recently yielded fossil human remains. Artefacts from the associated archaeological deposits are identified as being Middle Stone Age. U series analysis of capping calcretes and analysis of the foraminifera and fauna associated with the human fossils indicate an age for the deposit in excess of 74,000 years before present, and it most probably dates to around 300,000 years before present. The fossil human teeth from in situ deposits at Hoedjiespunt are described and found to be large by comparison with modern humans but smaller than the known upper dentitions of southern African "archaic" Homo sapiens. The Hoedjiespunt molars are found to be morphologically within the range of variation observed in the teeth of modern Homo sapiens.
Berger
L R
LR
Department of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Parkington
J E
JE
D000818:Animals; D001106:Archaeology; D049690:History, Ancient; D015186:Hominidae / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D006801:Humans; D008963:Molar / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D010161:Paleodontology; D013019:South Africa