A lineage perspective on hominin taxonomy and evolution.

An uncritical reliance on the phylogenetic species concept has led paleoanthropologists to become increasingly typological in their delimitation of new species in the hominin fossil record. As a practical matter, this approach identifies species as diagnosably distinct groups of fossils that share a unique suite of morphological characters but, ontologically, a species is a metapopulation lineage segment that extends from initial divergence to eventual extinction or subsequent speciation. Working from first principles of species concept theory, it is clear that a reliance on morphological diagnosabilty will systematically overestimate species diversity in the fossil record; because morphology can evolve within a lineage segment, it follows that early and late populations of the same species can be diagnosably distinct from each other.

New hominin dental remains from the ∼2.04-1.95 Ma Drimolen Main Quarry, South Africa.

Background: The Drimolen Palaeocave site is situated within the UNESCO Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa World Heritage Area and has yielded numerous hominin fossils since its discovery in 1992. Most of these fossils are represented by isolated dental elements, which have been attributed to either of two distinct hominin genera, and

Aim: This paper provides morphological descriptions for a further 19 specimens that have been recovered from the ∼2.04-1.

Drimolen cranium DNH 155 documents microevolution in an early hominin species.

Paranthropus robustus is a small-brained extinct hominin from South Africa characterized by derived, robust craniodental morphology. The most complete known skull of this species is DNH 7 from Drimolen Main Quarry, which differs from P. robustus specimens recovered elsewhere in ways attributed to sexual dimorphism.