Late Pleistocene age and archaeological context for the hominin calvaria from GvJm-22 (Lukenya Hill, Kenya).
Kenya National Museums Lukenya Hill Hominid 1 (KNM-LH 1) is a Homo sapiens partial calvaria from site GvJm-22 at Lukenya Hill, Kenya, associated with Later Stone Age (LSA) archaeological deposits. KNM-LH 1 is securely dated to the Late Pleistocene, and samples a time and region important for understanding the origins of modern human diversity. A revised chronology based on 26 accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates on ostrich eggshells indicates an age range of 23,576-22,887 y B.P. for KNM-LH 1, confirming prior attribution to the Last Glacial Maximum. Additional dates extend the maximum age for archaeological deposits at GvJm-22 to >46,000 y B.P. (>46 kya). These dates are consistent with new analyses identifying both Middle Stone Age and LSA lithic technologies at the site, making GvJm-22 a rare eastern African record of major human behavioral shifts during the Late Pleistocene. Comparative morphometric analyses of the KNM-LH 1 cranium document the temporal and spatial complexity of early modern human morphological variability. Features of cranial shape distinguish KNM-LH 1 and other Middle and Late Pleistocene African fossils from crania of recent Africans and samples from Holocene LSA and European Upper Paleolithic sites.
Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; christiantryon@fas.harvard.edu.
Christian A
CA
Tryon
Unité Mixte de Recherche 5199, de la Préhistoire à l'Actuel: Culture, Environnement, et Anthropologie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université de Bordeaux, 33615 Talence, France;
Isabelle
I
Crevecoeur
Archaeology Program, School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia;
J Tyler
JT
Faith
Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138;
Ravid
R
Ekshtain
Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY 10003;
Joelle
J
Nivens
Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052;
David
D
Patterson
National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya 00100;
Emma N
EN
Mbua
Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, D-04103, Leipzig, Germany; and Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London, WC1E 6BT London, United Kingdom.
Fred
F
Spoor
D003395:Craniology; D005580:Fossils; D006801:Humans; D007630:Kenya; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D012886:Skull
Homo sapiens; Later Stone Age; Middle Stone Age; modern human origins; ostrich eggshell