The Florisbad skull
A partial cranium from a South African spring, 259,000 years old, sits at the edge of our species.
- When
- Known to
- ± 35 thousand years
- Era
- Middle Pleistocene, Quaternary
The Florisbad skull, found in 1932 in spring deposits in the Free State, was dated by electron spin resonance to about 259,000 years ago. It has a large braincase with a broad face and heavy brow, and has been assigned variously to Homo helmei, archaic Homo sapiens, or the ancestral population of our species. It is one of the specimens that makes a sharp definition of Homo sapiens difficult to sustain.