Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa · 1972 · 14 citations · 11 references
Life SciencesArchaeologyEvolutionary BiologyHuman EvolutionPaleobiologyVertebrate PaleontologyArchaeological Evidence For Human EvolutionComparative OsteologyHominin Fossil RecordPhylogenetic PaleobiologySkeletal BiologyAncestral Population AnalysisAncestral Population StructureAncestral Remains IdentificationEarly Hominin EvolutionFossil Vertebrate AnatomyPaleoanthropological FossilsPrimate Fossil RecordPrimate Origins
Summary In 1964 fragments of a fossilized human skeleton were found near Windhoek, South West Africa. The secondary calcium carbonate deposited on the bones indicates that they are older than 3 000 years B.P. The remains are essentially Khoisanoid in character but show a blend of the small-headed, short-statured Bush variety and of the large robust variety. If the skeleton is old enough, it may represent a type of proto-Khoisanoid, or even a type of proto-negriform, from which the Khoisan and Negro people diverged. Or, if the remains are more recent than the date at which the proto-Khoisanoids dichotomized into derivative Bushman and Hottentot populations, they may represent a little-changed survivor of the ancestral population.
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