Boskop skull
Boskop skull, human fossil remnant consisting of a portion of a skull dome unearthed in 1913 by laborers on a river bank of a farm near the village of Boskop in the Transvaal, South Africa. The specimen consisted of the greater part of the frontal and parietal bones and a small portion of the occipital. Excavations at the site a year later disclosed a nearly complete temporal bone, most of the body of the left side of a poorly preserved mandible (with a second molar), and a number of fragments of limb bones. No animal or cultural remains were found in direct association except for a single unusual stone artifact. No geological age has been formally assigned to the skull, but some researchers speculate that the fossil dates to the end of the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago) based on an analysis of the chemical elements in the skull.
The frontal bone is rounded and narrow with a constriction above the nonprotruding, thin supraorbital ridges. Some degree of parietal bulging is present, and the thickness of the skull varies from 6 to 13 mm (0.24 to 0.51 inch). Cranial capacity is high (1,800 millilitres [109.8 cubic inches]), and the skull is narrow (205 mm [8 inches] long by 150 mm [5.9 inches] wide).
Many anthropologists have associated the Boskop skull with a hypothetical “Boskop race” because of discoveries of apparently similar skulls at other sites in Africa. It has been pointed out, however, that the Boskop skull is similar to skulls of contemporary Khoisan-speaking peoples (see also Khoisan languages). Further, accurate data concerning its discovery are limited since there is evidence that water flow of the Mooi River likely moved the remains from their original position, which minimizes its significance. It presents no primitive features, and there is no justification for utilizing the term Boskop race.
