Overview
- An international team digitally rebuilt the DAN5 skull from Gona, Ethiopia, using micro-CT scans and 3D assembly of facial fragments recovered in 2000.
- DAN5 is assigned to Homo erectus and combines an erectus-like braincase with a more archaic face and large molars, consistent with its previously noted small brain.
- The study reports this mosaic pattern within Africa for the first time, challenging ideas that classic Homo erectus anatomy evolved only outside the continent.
- The fossil is directly associated with both Oldowan tools and early Acheulian handaxes, linking anatomical variability to early technological transitions at Gona.
- Researchers plan comparisons with roughly one-million-year-old European fossils, including Homo antecessor, and aim to test possible admixture scenarios as more 1–2 million-year-old fossils are found.