A New Type of Fossil Man

Abstract

IN the cave at Swartkrans which has now yielded the jaws and skulls of the huge ape-man Paranthropus crassidens, there was found by Mr. J. T. Robinson, on April 29, 1949, the lower jaw of what is fairly manifestly a new type of man. Though this was discovered in the same cave as the large ape-man, it is clearly of considerably later date. In the main bone breccia of the cave deposit there has been a pocket excavated and refilled by a darker type of matrix. The pocket was of very limited extent, being only about 4 ft. by 3 ft. and about 2 ft. in thickness. The deposit was remarkably barren, there being no other bones in it except the human jaw and a few remains of very small mammals. We are thus at present unable to give the age of the deposit except to say that it must be considerably younger than the main deposit. If the main deposit is Upper Pliocene, not improbably the pocket may be Lower Pleistocene.