Mrs. Ples
Mrs. Ples is the common name for an extraordinarily completely preserved skull of an Australopithecus africanus . The nickname "Mrs. Ples ”is derived from the genus Plesianthropus (“ almost human ”), to which its discoverer Robert Broom put the skull in his first description in 1947 . In addition, Broom had derived from certain characteristics that the skull came from a female individual.
The discovery
"Mrs. Ples ”(catalog number Sts 5) was discovered by Robert Broom and his assistant John T. Robinson on April 18, 1947 in Sterkfontein , South Africa . The fossil comes from an as Member 4 designated Fund horizon , whose age is given as 2 to 3 million years. It was dated about 2.15 million years ago in 2005; Previously, a surface exposure dating published in 2003 had provided indications of a possible age of four million years. In 2011, the dating was refined based on a paleomagnetic analysis of the site: This new dating showed an age of 2.16 to 2.05 million years, which means that this fossil is the youngest of all specimens of Australopithecus africanus discovered to date .
The gender of the fossil is unknown. X-rays revealed that the skull may have come from an adolescent individual and speculated that it came from a male individual.
The dimensions of the skull were given in the first description in Nature in May 1947 as follows: forehead ( glabella ) - back of skull (opisthocranium): 150 mm; Temple - temple: 100 mm; from this a brain volume of around 500 cm³ was calculated. More recently, a brain volume of 485 cm³ has been calculated.
In the same year 1947 Robert Broom found parts of a postcranial skeleton in the same layer in the immediate vicinity ; it was given the catalog number Sts 14 . This consists of the almost complete hip, 13 vertebrae that are complete in the skeletal structure, several ribs and a thigh. The position of the thigh in the pelvis of Sts 14 was first interpreted by Robert Broom as evidence of the upright gait in Australopithecines. Francis Thackeray of the Northern Flagship Institute ( Transvaal , South Africa), after examining the skeletal remains of Sts 14 in the late 1990s, suspected a connection with Sts 5.
It is unclear how closely Australopithecus africanus is related to the earliest representatives of the genus Homo and thus to modern humans .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Robert Broom: Discovery of a New Skull of the South African Ape-man, Plesianthropus. In: Nature . Vol. 159, 1947, p. 672; doi : 10.1038 / 159672a0
- ↑ 'Mother Africa and Mrs Ples' exhibition at the Transvaal Museum. ( Memento of January 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) On: ambafrance-rsa.org , 2007
- ^ TC Partridge: Dating of the Sterkfontein hominins: progress and possibilities. In: Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. Volume 60, 2005, pp. 107-110
- ↑ Tim C. Partridge et al .: Lower Pliocene Hominid Remains from Sterkfontein. In: Science . Volume 300, No. 5619, 2003, pp. 607-612, doi: 10.1126 / science.1081651
- ↑ Andy IR Herries, John Shaw: Palaeomagnetic analysis of the Sterkfontein palaeocave deposits: Implications for the age of the hominin fossils and stone tool industries. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 60, No. 5, 2011, pp. 523-539, doi : 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2010.09.001
- ↑ JF Thackeray , J. Braga, J. Treil, N. Niksch and JH Labuschagne: 'Mrs Ples' (Sts 5) from Sterkfontein: an adolescent male? In: South African Journal of Science. Volume 98, 2002, pp. 21-22
- ↑ Glenn C. Conroy et al .: Endocranial Capacity in an Early Hominid Cranium from Sterkfontein, South Africa. In: Science. Volume 260, 1998, pp. 1730-1731; doi : 10.1126 / science.280.5370.1730
- ↑ Surprise: Museum find Mrs Ples skull to rest of body on the left. ( Memento from October 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) On: primeorigins.co.za
Coordinates: 26 ° 0 ′ 56 ″ S , 27 ° 44 ′ 5 ″ E