Kabwe skull (Rhodesian Man)
Cráneo de Kabwe (Hombre de Rodesia)
- Date
- 1921 · confidence high
- Place
- Kabwe (Broken Hill), Central Province, Zambia
- Credited to
- Tom Zwiglaar (miner) and Arthur Smith Woodward (description)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
In 1921 a miner found an archaic-looking skull in the Broken Hill lead and zinc mine; Woodward described it as Homo rhodesiensis. It is the first fossil of an ancient hominin found in Africa south of the Sahara.
The date, once placed around 300-125 ka, was fixed at c. 299 ka (Grün et al., 2020); the assignment (H. heidelbergensis, H. rhodesiensis or archaic H. sapiens) is debated.
What it led to
- the beginning of sub-Saharan palaeoanthropology
- discussion of Homo heidelbergensis and the origins of H. sapiens
- a find tied to colonial lead and zinc mining