Cranium · Type Specimen
OH 5 — Paranthropus boisei
The 1.8 million-year-old "Nutcracker Man" cranium discovered by Mary Leakey in 1959, redefining dietary inference in early hominins.
The Fossil Archive
A Catalogued Record of Hominin Specimens from the Field
Browse 247 catalogued specimens across 38 excavation sites — filter by geological period, hominin lineage, year of discovery, and repository. Every entry is cross-referenced to its primary field notes, stratigraphic context, and peer-reviewed publication.
247
Catalogued specimens
38
Excavation sites
7.2Ma
Span of deep time
14
Hominin lineages
The Catalogue
Submit a specimen
Specimen Records
Filter the collection by hominin lineage, geological period, excavation site, or year of discovery. Each record links to full field documentation, dating evidence, and repository accession numbers.
Hominin
Period
Site
Discovered
Partial cranium · Endocast
SK 48 — Paranthropus cranium
A partial cranium with associated natural endocast from Member 4 at Swartkrans, evidence of early hominin neuroanatomy.
Skull · Subadult
D2282 — Homo erectus georgicus
The first complete hominin skull recovered from the Dmanisi site, demonstrating an early hominin dispersal out of Africa at 1.8 Ma.
Postcranial · Pelvis
AT-700 — Australopithecus pelvis
The El Sidrón juvenile Neanderthal pelvis, preserving rare evidence of growth patterns and obstetrics in Late Pleistocene hominins.
Isolated tooth
TM 266-01 — Sahelanthropus tchadensis
The Toumaï cranium: a near-complete skull pushing the hominin lineage back to 7 Ma and re-dating the human–chimpanzee split.
Near-complete skeleton
La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1
The "Old Man" of La Chapelle — a foundational Neanderthal skeleton discovered in 1908 that shaped a century of paleoanthropology.
Methodology
How a Specimen Enters the Archive
Every record passes through a four-stage pipeline — from in-situ documentation to peer-reviewed publication — before it is released into the public catalogue.
01 / Field
In-situ Documentation
Photogrammetry, total-station mapping, and stratigraphic profiling capture the specimen's three-dimensional context before removal. All taphonomic observations are recorded on standardized field sheets.
See field methods →
02 / Lab
Chronometric Dating
U-series, ESR, OSL, and 14C methods are applied where appropriate. Direct dating is preferred; when unavailable, specimens are tied to bracketing dated horizons within the stratigraphic sequence.
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03 / Repository
Accession & Curation
Specimens receive a permanent accession number at a partner institution, with high-resolution surface scans, micro-CT volumes, and 3D meshes deposited in open repositories.
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04 / Publish
Peer-Reviewed Release
After external review and institutional sign-off, full records — measurements, context, dating evidence, and imagery — are published to the archive with persistent identifiers and citation.
Read the editorial charter →
Recent additions
Latest Catalogued Discoveries
Specimens added to the archive in the past two field seasons, in the order they completed peer review and were released.
MARCH 2024
DRB-14 — Denisovan molar from Dragon Bone Hill
A deciduous molar recovered during the 2022 Zhoukoudian re-excavation campaign, dated via coupled U-series and ESR to 105 ± 9 ka. Proteomic analysis confirms Denisovan affinity.
JANUARY 2024
SRT-7 — Olduvai Bed II hominin foot
A near-complete fourth metatarsal from the long-sampled FLK-N layer, supporting continued obligate bipedal locomotion in Paranthropus boisei by 1.7 Ma.
NOVEMBER 2023
AT-2890 — Sima de los Huesos cranium
The twenty-eighth cranium catalogued from the Atapuerca Sima assemblage, with associated aDNA placing the population on the Neanderthal lineage by 430 ka — the earliest such evidence to date.
AUGUST 2023
DMS-1 — Dmanisi postcranial assemblage
Two partial femora and a tibia from the 2021 Dmanisi Block 2 expansion, the first postcranial evidence directly associated with the D2282 cranium individual.
Continue Exploring
Read the Field Stories Behind the Specimens
Each catalogued fossil was excavated, cleaned, and analyzed by a working team. The Fieldwork section documents the active campaigns that continue to fill this archive — from the Turkana Basin to the Atapuerca hills.