Twelve hominid calvaria and an additional 25,000 vertebrate fossils were found at Ngandong between 1931 and 1933. Another two fragmentary hominid calvaria and a pelvic fragment were found in excavations conducted between 1976 and 1980. The calvaria are quite large when compared to other Homo erectus specimens, but most researchers today place them in that species.

As in most of the Javanese hominid localities dating has been a problem at Ngandong. Swisher and his team set out to resolve the question of the site's age by dating bovid teeth; newly excavated teeth found in a pit located adjacent to the original excavation where the hominid remains were found as well as teeth collected in the 1931-1933 excavations and believed to have been in direct association with the hominid remains. ESR dates show a mean age of about 27,000 years and U-series dates range from 93,000 to 31,000 years.

It goes without saying that if the date of 27,000 B.P. or anything close to that holds up for Homo erectus in Java, there is substantial chronological overlap between these Asian hominids and anatomically modern Homo sapiens. As Swisher et al. (1996) propose, such a late date for Homo erectus suggests that it could not have been ancestral to modern humanity and is, instead, a parallel hominid line that became extinct without issue. This is similar to the argument that 30,000 year old Neandertals in Europe cannot have been ancestral to 100,000 year old anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Africa or southwest Asia. This interpretation of both Homo erectus and the Neandertals as extinct side branches of hominid evolution is supportive of the replacement hypothesis and would seem to contradict the multiregional approach (see Chapter 12 in Human Antiquity).

A recent broad analysis of changes in hominid body mass and encephalization lends support to the assertion of stasis in brain size during the Middle Paleolithic as maintained in Chapter 10 of Human Antiquity. Ruff, Trinkaus and Holliday (1997) examined 163 Pleistocene hominid specimens. Applying two separate techinques for determining body size from skeletal remains, the researchers found that the fossil hominids were, on average, 7.4 kg larger than living humans. This same analysis showed that the "encephalization quotient," a statistic that takes both brain size and body mass into consideration (EQ=brain mass/(11.22 X body mass)), derived for the hominids in the sample, exhibited stasis from the period 1.8 million years to 600,000 years ago, with a period of significant brain size growth relative to body mass between 600,000 and 150,000 years ago. In other words, a significant period of encephalization can be correlated with the evolution of archaic Homo sapiens.

A detailed analysis of the Middle Pleistocene fossil hominids recovered from the Gran Dolina site in the Atapuerca Mountains of northern Spain has led the investigators of that site to classify the specimens as a new hominid species: Homo antecessor ("explorer" or "one who goes first") (Bermúdez de Castro et al. 1997). As cited in Chapter 10 in Human Antiquity, the Gran Dolina hominids specimens are at least 800,000 years old. One of the Gran Dolina specimens is the partial (lower portion) face of a 10-12 year old; what is preserved is entirely modern in its morphology and, therefore, quite different from the preserved faces both of older Homo erectus fossils and later Neandertals (including those of juveniles of these species). As a result of the mosiac of primitive and modern traits of the Gran Dolina fossils, the researchers suggest that the newly named Homo antecessor represents a descendant of the African Homo ergaster and is ancestral to archaic and anatomically modern Homo sapiens. In the view of Bermúdez de Castro et al. (1997), Homo antecessor evolved from Homo ergaster in Africa (though no specimens of the former have yet been found in Africa, the researchers emphasize common features in the two fossil species). In this model, another line of Homo ergaster evolved into Homo erectus when they moved into Asia. Homo antecessor split into two lines. One of those lines led to Homo heidelbergensis in Europe (most of the specimens of which we labeled "archaic Homo sapiens" in Human Antiquity) which led, in turn, to the Neandertals. The other line of Homo antecessor's descendants became anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Africa, spreading from there to encounter the descendants of other lines whose source was Homo ergaster. This new interpretation certainly has its critics and more data will be required to assess this major revision of human evolution.

 See the December issue of Discover magazine for an informative article on the fossil hominid assemblage from Atapuerca in Spain (Kunzig 1997). Summarizing the work and interpretation of Juan Luis Arsuaga, José Bermúdez de Castro, and Eudald Carbonell, the author of the article presents and articulate defense of the notion that the hominids recovered from Gran Dolina are representatives of a new species, Homo antecessor. Also, see the discussion in Human Antiquity Update of the technical article naming the species in Science (Bermúdez de Castro 1997).

It is becoming increasing clear that Lewis Binford was correct in challenging the longstanding belief that there was indisputable evidence that Homo erectus used fire at Zhoukoudian. A just published report by Weiner et al. (1998) based on new excavations indicates that there is no charcoal or ash in the stratigraphic layers associated with Homo erectus. On the other hand, there are burned animal bones in the same levels in which stone tools were found. However, the lack of any evidence of in situ burning in the cave calls into question the source of that burning, natural fires or controlled burning by Homo erectus. It can no longer be stated with any certainty that Homo erectus could control fire by 460,000 years ago at Zhoukoudian. 

A one million year old hominid cranium and fragments of a pelvis have been found in the Afar region of Eritrea (Abbate 1998). The fossil exhibits several characteristics of Homo erectus including a long, low braincase and a large supraorbital torus. On the other hand, it also seems to presage some features of Homo sapiens (the high position of the greatest biparietal breadth). This may indicate that a hominid with a morphology like that of Homo sapiens had begun to develop by about 1 million years ago.

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