MWU Researcher Discovers New Insight Into Early Human Migration
New face reconstruction from Ethiopia provides a new vision of the origins and early migration of human ancestors
Fossil fragments of a face as well as teeth were reassembled to produce the most complete cranium of a human ancestor from this time in the Horn of Africa.
An international research effort led by ¾ÅÉ«ÊÓƵ faculty researcher Karen Baab, Ph.D., Professor, Anatomy, College of Graduate Studies, Glendale Campus, has utilized a remarkably preserved 1.5-million-year-old fossil face to help expand scientists’ understanding of early human evolution and migration. The study, published in Nature Communications, presents the first complete Early Pleistocene hominin cranium from the Horn of Africa and is based on a fossil discovered at the Gona archaeological site in Ethiopia.
Using high-resolution micro-CT scanning and advanced virtual reconstruction techniques, the international research team created a virtual cranial reassembly based on facial and dental fragments belonging to an early Homo erectus individual known as DAN5. The reconstructed face shows a combination of features - an archaic facial structure paired with more derived braincase traits - that challenges long-standing assumptions about where and how Homo erectus evolved before dispersing beyond Africa.
Since its publication, the findings are gaining widespread attention within the scientific community, contributing to ongoing discussions about anatomical diversity and evolutionary transitions among early members of the human lineage.
