Australopithecus sediba at 1.977 Ma and implications for the origins of the genus Homo. Academic Article

abstract

• Newly exposed cave sediments at the Malapa site include a flowstone layer capping the sedimentary unit containing the Australopithecus sediba fossils. Uranium-lead dating of the flowstone, combined with paleomagnetic and stratigraphic analysis of the flowstone and underlying sediments, provides a tightly constrained date of 1.977 0.002 million years ago (Ma) for these fossils. This refined dating suggests that Au. sediba from Malapa predates the earliest uncontested evidence for Homo in Africa.

authors

• de Ruiter, Darryl

published proceedings

• Science

altmetric score

• 113.168

author list (cited authors)

• Pickering, R., Dirks, P., Jinnah, Z., de Ruiter, D. J., Churchil, S. E., Herries, A., ... Berger, L. R.

citation count

• 136

complete list of authors

• Pickering, Robyn||Dirks, Paul HGM||Jinnah, Zubair||de Ruiter, Darryl J||Churchil, Steven E||Herries, Andy IR||Woodhead, Jon D||Hellstrom, John C||Berger, Lee R

publication date

• September 2011

publisher

• American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)  Publisher

published in

• Science  Journal

keywords

• Animals
• Fossils
• Geologic Sediments
• Geology
• Hominidae
• Magnetics
• Radiometric Dating
• South Africa
• Time
• Uranium

PubMed Central ID

• 21903808

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1126/science.1203697

start page

• 1421

end page

• 1423

volume

• 333

issue

• 6048

URL

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1203697