1. Rift Valley Research Service, P.O. Box 5717, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
2. Department of Integrative Biology and Laboratory for Human Evolutionary Studies, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, VLSB, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
3. Department of Anthropology and Archaeology ARCCH, Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
4. Department of Geology, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, USA
5. Berkeley Geochronology Center, 2455 Ridge Road, Berkeley, California 94709, USA, and
6. Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
7. EES-6/MS D462 Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
8. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA

Correspondence to: Berhane Asfaw¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to B.A. (e-mail: Email: ramid@telecom.net.et).

The genesis, evolution and fate of Homo erectus have been explored palaeontologically since the taxon's recognition in the late nineteenth century. Current debate¹ is focused on whether early representatives from Kenya and Georgia should be classified as a separate ancestral species ('H. ergaster')^{2, 3, 4}, and whether H. erectus was an exclusively Asian species lineage that went extinct^{5, 6}. Lack of resolution of these issues has obscured the place of H. erectus in human evolution. A hominid calvaria and postcranial remains recently recovered from the Dakanihylo Member of the Bouri Formation, Middle Awash, Ethiopia, bear directly on these issues. These 1.0-million-year (Myr)-old Pleistocene sediments contain abundant early Acheulean stone tools and a diverse vertebrate fauna that indicates a predominantly savannah environment. Here we report that the 'Daka' calvaria's metric and morphological attributes centre it firmly within H. erectus. Daka's resemblance to Asian counterparts indicates that the early African and Eurasian fossil hominids represent demes of a widespread palaeospecies. Daka's anatomical intermediacy between earlier and later African fossils provides evidence of evolutionary change. Its temporal and geographic position indicates that African H. erectus was the ancestor of Homo sapiens.