''Homo rhodesiensis'' is the species name proposed by
Arthur Smith Woodward
Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, FRS (23 May 1864 – 2 September 1944) was an English palaeontologist, known as a world expert in fossil fish. He also described the Piltdown Man fossils, which were later determined to be fraudulent. He is not relate ...
(1921) to classify
Kabwe 1
Kabwe 1 (also called the Broken Hill skull, Rhodesian Man) is a Middle Paleolithic fossil assigned by Arthur Smith Woodward in 1921 as the type specimen for ''Homo rhodesiensis'', now mostly considered a synonym of ''Homo heidelbergensis''.Hubl ...
(the "Kabwe skull" or "Broken Hill skull", also "Rhodesian Man"), a
Middle Stone Age
The Middle Stone Age (or MSA) was a period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Late Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50–25,000 years ago. The beginnings of pa ...
fossil recovered from a cave at Broken Hill, or
Kabwe
Kabwe is the capital of the Zambian Central Province and the Kabwe District, with a population estimated at 202,914 at the 2010 census. Named Broken Hill until 1966, it was founded when lead and zinc deposits were discovered in 1902. Kabwe also ...
,
Northern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia was a British protectorate in southern Africa, south central Africa, now the independent country of Zambia. It was formed in 1911 by Amalgamation (politics), amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of Barotziland-North-West ...
(now
Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...
).. In 2020, the skull was dated to 324,000 to 274,000 years ago. Other similar older specimens also exist.
''Homo rhodesiensis'' s.s. appears to have diverged earlier than ''H. heidelbergensis'' s.s. (Mauer)''. H. rhodesiensis'' s.l. is now mostly considered a synonym of ''
H. heidelbergensis
''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of '' H. erectus'' in ...
'' s.l', or perhaps then slightly larger. Other designations such as ''Homo sapiens arcaicus''
and ''Homo sapiens rhodesiensis''
have also been proposed.
Fossils
![Rhodesian Men](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Rhodesian_Men.jpg)
A number of
morphologically comparable fossil remains came to light in East Africa (Bodo, Ndutu, Eyasi,
Ileret
Ileret (also spelled Illeret) is a village in Marsabit County, Kenya. It is located in Northern Kenya, on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana, north of Sibiloi National Park and near the Ethiopian border.
Numerous hominin fossils have been foun ...
) and North Africa (Salé, Rabat, Dar-es-Soltane, Djbel Irhoud, Sidi Aberrahaman, Tighenif) during the 20th century.
*
Kabwe 1
Kabwe 1 (also called the Broken Hill skull, Rhodesian Man) is a Middle Paleolithic fossil assigned by Arthur Smith Woodward in 1921 as the type specimen for ''Homo rhodesiensis'', now mostly considered a synonym of ''Homo heidelbergensis''.Hubl ...
, also called the Broken Hill skull, or "Rhodesian Man", was assigned by
Arthur Smith Woodward
Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, FRS (23 May 1864 – 2 September 1944) was an English palaeontologist, known as a world expert in fossil fish. He also described the Piltdown Man fossils, which were later determined to be fraudulent. He is not relate ...
in 1921 as the type specimen for ''Homo rhodesiensis''; most contemporary scientists forego the taxon "rhodesiensis" altogether and assign it to ''Homo heidelbergensis''.
[Hublin, J.-J. (2013), "The Middle Pleistocene Record. On the Origin of Neandertals, Modern Humans and Others" in: R. David Begun (ed.), ''A Companion to Paleoanthropology'', John Wiley, pp. 517-537]
p. 523
. The
cranium
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, the ...
was discovered in Mutwe Wa Nsofu Area in a
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
and
zinc
Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...
mine in Broken Hill,
Northern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia was a British protectorate in southern Africa, south central Africa, now the independent country of Zambia. It was formed in 1911 by Amalgamation (politics), amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of Barotziland-North-West ...
(now
Kabwe
Kabwe is the capital of the Zambian Central Province and the Kabwe District, with a population estimated at 202,914 at the 2010 census. Named Broken Hill until 1966, it was founded when lead and zinc deposits were discovered in 1902. Kabwe also ...
,
Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...
) on June 17, 1921 by Tom Zwiglaar, a Swiss
miner
A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face; cutting, blasting, ...
. In addition to the cranium, an upper
jaw
The jaw is any opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth, typically used for grasping and manipulating food. The term ''jaws'' is also broadly applied to the whole of the structures constituting the vault of the mouth and serv ...
from another individual, a
sacrum
The sacrum (plural: ''sacra'' or ''sacrums''), in human anatomy, is a large, triangular bone at the base of the spine that forms by the fusing of the sacral vertebrae (S1S5) between ages 18 and 30.
The sacrum situates at the upper, back part ...
, a
tibia
The tibia (; ), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outside of the tibia); it connects ...
, and two
femur
The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates with ...
fragments were also found.
*
Bodo cranium
''Homo bodoensis'' is the species name for extinct archaic humans that lived during the Chibanian (770–126 ka) in Africa. It relies on the fossil specimen known as Bodo cranium, which was discovered in 1976 from the Awash River in Ethiopia ...
: The 600,000 year old fossil was found in 1976 by members of an expedition led by Jon Kalb at Bodo D'ar in the
Awash River
The Awash (sometimes spelled Awaash; Oromo: ''Awaash'', Amharic: አዋሽ, Afar: ''We'ayot'', Somali: ''Webiga Dir'') is a major river of Ethiopia. Its course is entirely contained within the boundaries of Ethiopia and empties into a chain of ...
valley of
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
. Although the skull is most similar to those of Kabwe, Woodward's nomenclature was discontinued and its discoverers attributed it to ''H. heidelbergensis''. It has features that represent a transition between ''
Homo ergaster
''Homo ergaster'' is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Africa in the Early Pleistocene. Whether ''H. ergaster'' constitutes a species of its own or should be subsumed into ''Homo erectus, H. erectus'' is an ongoin ...
''/''erectus'' and ''Homo sapiens''.
*
Ndutu cranium
The Ndutu skull is the partial cranium of a hominin that has been assigned variously to late '' Homo erectus'' ''Homo rhodesiensis'', and early ''Homo sapiens'', from the Middle Pleistocene, found at Lake Ndutu in northern Tanzania.
Discovery ...
, "the hominid from
Lake Ndutu" in northern Tanzania, around 600-500,000 years old
[Mturi, A A (August 1976). “New hominid from Lake Ndutu, Tanzania”. Nature 262: 484-485.] or 400,000 years old. In 1976 R. J. Clarke classified it as ''
Homo erectus
''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...
'' and it has generally been viewed that way, although points of similarity to ''H. sapiens'' have also been recognized. After comparative studies with similar finds in Africa allocation to an African subspecies of ''H. sapiens'' was considered most appropriate by Phillip Rightmire. An indirect cranial capacity estimate suggests 1100 ml. Its supratoral sulcus morphology and the presence of protuberance as suggested by Rightmire "give the Nudutu occiput an appearance which is also unlike that of ''Homo erectus''". And in a 1989 publication Clarke concluded: "It is assigned to archaic ''Homo sapiens'' on the basis of its expanded parietal and occipital regions of the brain". But Stinger (1986) pointed out that a ''thickened iliac pillar'' is typical for ''Homo erectus''. In 2016, Chris Stringer classified the cranium as belonging to ''Homo heidelbergensis''/''Homo rhodesiensis'' (a species considered to be intermediate between ''Homo erectus'' and ''Homo sapiens'') rather than as early ''H. sapiens'', but considers it to display a "more sapiens-like zygomaxillary morphology" than certain other examples of ''Homo rhodesiensis''.
*The
Saldanha cranium found in 1953 in South Africa, and estimated at around 500,000 years old, was subject to at least three taxonomic revisions from 1955 to 1996.
See also
* ''
Homo heidelbergensis
''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of ''H. erectus'' in ...
''
*
List of fossil sites
This list of fossil sites is a worldwide list of localities known well for the presence of fossils. Some entries in this list are notable for a single, unique find, while others are notable for the large number of fossils found there. Many of t ...
*
List of hominina fossils
The following tables give an overview of notable finds of hominin fossils and remains relating to human evolution, beginning with the formation of the tribe Hominini (the divergence of the human and chimpanzee lineages) in the late Miocene, roug ...
References
Literature
*
*
* .
*
* .
* .
External links
*
*
*
Human Timeline (Interactive)–
Smithsonian,
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...
(August 2016).
{{Taxonbar, from=Q131464
Homo heidelbergensis
Rhodesiensis
Fossil taxa described in 1921