New hominin postcranial fossils from Kromdraai, South Africa (2014–2025)
Jeremy M. DeSilva, Catherine K. Miller, Marine Cazenave, Gideon Chinamatira, Habiba Chirchir, Ashley S. Hammond, Tracy L. Kivell, Klara Komza, Ellison J. McNutt, Kimberleigh Tommy, John F. Thackeray, Zewdi Tsegai, Alessandra Vecino Gazabón, José Braga, Bernhard ZipfelAbstract
Kromdraai, South Africa is the type locality of Paranthropus robustus . Renewed paleontological exploration of the site has yielded over 50 hominin fossils since 2014, including 21 postcranial elements. These finds nearly triple the number of postcranial remains previously known from Kromdraai. We describe here four partial humeri, five manual phalanges, two femora, two patellae, and eight pedal elements. Twenty of the fossils derive from Unit P, which dates to over 2.0 million years old and includes craniodental material from Paranthropus and Homo . One fossil, a patella, may derive from the stratigraphically older Unit O. Interestingly, while more than half of the craniodental remains from Unit P are identified as juvenile, all of the postcrania are adult. Furthermore, though none of the postcrania are directly associated with craniodental finds, we tentatively propose taxonomic assignments for some of these fossils, including two humeri and two femora that may belong to Paranthropus .