Out of Africa

Human fossil remains are always exceptional rarities. From such precious fragments we must attempt to glimpse our own human lineage as it stretches back beyond the borders of history into a past that, however distant it might seem from our own time, we nevertheless inhabited. This particular specimen, known at the time of its discovery almost a century ago as Homo rhodesiensis – Rhodesian man – is now considered to be an African version of the Neanderthal form, Homo heidelbergensis, although the scarcity of the remains makes any exact placement in the scheme of things tentative.

Even as science struggles to weigh and measure these questions, to classify and to define, we still are confronted with the remains of an individual human: someone who lived out his life, who in his existence was confronted with the daily issues of pain and loss and the small triumphs of simple survival. This particular individual knew physical suffering: his skull bears the signs of advanced tooth infection and decay which probably was the cause of death.

My photograph of the skull below was taken in the Naturalis museum in Leiden. The skull on display is a cast of the original: the actual fossil is simply too precious to be put on public display, and such casts are a means for museums to share knowledge. My life reconstruction above is a pencil drawing to which colour has been added digitally.