Dating the skull from Broken Hill, Zambia, and its position in human evolution

The cranium from Broken Hill (Kabwe) was recovered from cave deposits in 1921, during metal ore mining in what is now Zambia1. It is one of the best-preserved skulls of a fossil hominin, and was initially designated as the type specimen of Homo rhodesiensis, but recently it has often been included in the taxon Homo heidelbergensis2–4. However, the original site has since been completely quarried away, and—although the cranium is often estimated...