Abstract
IN the cave at Swartkrans which has now yielded the jaws and skulls of the huge ape-man Paranthropus crassidens, there was found by Mr. J. T. Robinson, on April 29, 1949, the lower jaw of what is fairly manifestly a new type of man. Though this was discovered in the same cave as the large ape-man, it is clearly of considerably later date. In the main bone breccia of the cave deposit there has been a pocket excavated and refilled by a darker type of matrix. The pocket was of very limited extent, being only about 4 ft. by 3 ft. and about 2 ft. in thickness. The deposit was remarkably barren, there being no other bones in it except the human jaw and a few remains of very small mammals. We are thus at present unable to give the age of the deposit except to say that it must be considerably younger than the main deposit. If the main deposit is Upper Pliocene, not improbably the pocket may be Lower Pleistocene.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
BROOM, R., ROBINSON, J. A New Type of Fossil Man. Nature 164, 322–323 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/164322a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/164322a0
This article is cited by
-
Craniofacial diversity in earlyHomo and the affinities of the Sterkfontein Valley
Human Evolution (2002)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.
