From Newsgroup: sci.anthropology.paleo


https://www.sci.news/othersciences/anthropology/dan5-homo-erectus-14428.html

Paleoanthropologists have examined and reconstructed
DAN5, a 1.5-million-year-old fossilized skull of early
Homo erectus found in Gona in the Afar region of
Ethiopia.

rCLWe already knew that the DAN5 fossil had a small
brain, but this new reconstruction shows that the face
is also more primitive than classic African Homo
erectus of the same antiquity,rCY said Dr. Karen Baab,
a paleoanthropologist at Midwestern University.

rCLOne explanation is that the Gona population retained
the anatomy of the population that originally migrated
out of Africa approximately 300,000 years earlier.rCY

For the study, Dr. Baab and colleagues used
high-resolution micro-CT scans of the four major
fragments of the DAN5rCOs face, which were recovered
during the 2000 fieldwork at Gona.

3D models of the fragments were generated from the
CT scans. The face fragments were then re-pieced
together on a computer screen, and the teeth were fit
into the upper jaw where possible.
...
The study shows that the Gona hominin population had
a mix of typical Homo erectus characters concentrated
in its braincase, but more ancestral features of the
face and teeth normally only seen in earlier species.
...


https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-66381-9
New reconstruction of DAN5 cranium (Gona, Ethiopia)
supports complex emergence of Homo erectus

Abstract
The African Early Pleistocene is a time of
evolutionary change and techno-behavioral
innovation in human prehistory that sees the advent
of our own genus, Homo, from earlier
australopithecine ancestors by 2.8-2.3 million
years ago. This was followed by the origin and
dispersal of Homo erectus sensu lato across Africa
and Eurasia betweenrCe~rCe2.0 and 1.1rCeMa and the emergence
of both large-brained (e.g., Bodo, Kabwe) and
small-brained (e.g., H. naledi) lineages in the
Middle Pleistocene of Africa. Here we present a newly
reconstructed face of the DAN5/P1 cranium from Gona,
Ethiopia (1.6-1.5rCeMa) that, in conjunction with the
cranial vault, is a mostly complete Early Pleistocene
Homo cranium from the Horn of Africa. Morphometric
analyses demonstrate a combination of H. erectus-like
cranial traits and basal Homo-like facial and dental
features combined with a small brain size in DAN5/P1.
The presence of such a morphological mosaic
contemporaneous with or postdating the emergence of
the indisputable H. erectus craniodental complex
around 1.6rCeMa implies an intricate evolutionary
transition from early Homo to H. erectus. This finding
also supports a long persistence of small-brained,
plesiomorphic Homo group(s) alongside other Homo groups
that experienced continued encephalization through the
Early to Middle Pleistocene of Africa.





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