Gawis Cranium - Discovery and Significance

Discovery and Significance

The skull was discovered by Asahmed Humet, a member of the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project. Asahmed Humet found in small erosion gully a recently resurfaced fossil. The erosion gully empty to the Gawis river drainage basin in the Afar Region, 300 miles northeast of Addis Ababa. The skull is a nearly complete cranium of what is believed to be a Middle Pleistocene human ancestor. While different from a modern human, the braincase, upper face and jaw of the cranium have unmistakable anatomical evidence that belong to human ancestry.

Significant archaeological collections of stone tools and numerous fossil animals were also found at the site.

The discovery was reported by Sileshi Semaw, director of the Gona Project, who is based at the Stone Age Institute, but is difficult to find report related publication

Gawis is in the Gona Research Project study area, which is in the Awash River Valley. Immediately to the east of Gona, also located along the Awash and one of its tributaries is the site of Hadar, where U.S. scientist Donald Johanson found the 3.2 million year old remains of an Australopithecus afarensis, known as Lucy, in 1974. The Middle Awash, site of many other hominid discoveries, is to the south.

In addition to the Gawis cranium, the Gona project area is where the world's oldest stone tools (2.6 million years old) were discovered, as well as fossils of Ardipithecus ramidus dated to approximately 4.5 million years ago.