The Broken Hill skull is on public display for the first time at London’s Natural History Museum. Found in the Broken Hill mine in Zambia in 1921, it belongs to the species Homo heidelbergensis that lived 250,000 to 600,000 years ago. They were distinctly human in physique and behaviour, evidence suggests that they were accomplished tool makers and could skilfully butcher large animals. The skull belongs to an adult, probably male.
“The Broken Hill skull is important because it is the most complete and best preserved skull of Homo heidelbergensis, the species that gave rise to our own,” says Rob Kruszynski of the Natural History Museum. Charles Darwin had predicted in the 1870s that humans evolved in Africa because that was where our closest living relatives, the African apes, were. The skull was the first evidence showing his intuition was right. More recent DNA studies have revealed that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens shared a common ancestor about 400,000 years ago. Homo heidelbergensis is the likely candidate.
Picture Credit : Google
