Homo gautengensis

Homo gautengensis is a hominin species proposed by biological anthropologist Darren Curnoe in 2010. The species is composed of South African hominin fossils previously attributed to Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, or, in some cases, Australopithecus, and is argued by Curnoe to be the earliest species in the genus Homo.

Analysis announced in May 2010 of a partial skull found decades earlier in South Africa's Sterkfontein Caves in Gauteng near Johannesburg identified the species, named Homo gautengensis by anthropologist Dr. Darren Curnoe of the UNSW School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences. The species has been considered by Lee Berger and co-workers to be an invalid taxon because it conflicts with their interpretations of Australopithecus sediba. The species' first remains were discovered in the 1930s by Broom and Robinson, and the most complete skull (species Holotype Stw 53) was recovered in 1977 and was argued to belong to the species Homo habilis. The type specimen has been discussed in some refereed publications as being synonymous with A. africanus, but most analyses have considered it to belong in the genus Homo, and several have suggested it sampled a novel species prior to Curnoe's description.

Identification of H. gautengensis was based on partial skulls, several jaws, teeth and other bones found at various times and cave sites in the Cradle of Humankind. The oldest specimens are those from Swartkrans Member 1 (Hanging Remnant) between 1.9 and 1.8 Ma . The type specimen StW 53 from Sterkfontein is dated to sometime between 1.8 and 1.5 Ma. A specimen from Gondolin Cave is dated to ~1.8 Ma. Other specimens from Sterkfontein Member 5 date to between 1.4 and 1.1 Ma, with the youngest specimens from Swartkrans Member 3 dated to sometime between 1.0 and 0.6 Ma.