Florisbad 1 is a hominin fossil recovered by Prof. T.F. Dreyer from the depths of a warm lithium spring deposit in the Orange Free State, South Africa, in 1932. The skull consists of frontal and parietal pieces and an incomplete right side of the face (Conroy, 1997). In 1996 a direct date was obtained for the skull using electron spin resonance dating on two small samples of enamel removed from the only tooth to be found with the skull. These yielded a date of 259,000 +/- 35,000 years (Grun et al 1996).
The skull was originally classified as Homo helmei by Dreyer to mark its distinctiveness from other fossil Homo sapiens. It is now generally either described as “archaic Homo sapiens” or assigned to Homo heidelbergensis, but it may be an intermediate form between H. heidelbergensis and H. sapiens, in which case retention of the Homo helmei classification would be appropriate.
References:
Conroy G (1997): “Reconstructing Human Origins: A Modern Synthesis”, W.W. Norton & Co. Inc, New York, NY & London.
Grün, R., Brink, J.S., Spooner, N.A., Taylor, L., Stringer, C.B., Franciscus, R.B. & Murray, A. (1996): Direct dating of the Florisbad hominid. Nature 382: 500–501.
Lewin, R and Foley, R 2004: Principles of Human Evolution (2nd edition), Blackwell Science Ltd.
© Christopher Seddon 2008
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