The history and composition of the Raymond A. Dart Collection of Human Skeletons at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Raymond A. Dart Collection of Human Skeletons (Dart Collection) is housed in the School of Anatomical Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and comprises one of the largest documented cadaver-derived human skeletal assemblages in the world. This collection originated in the early 1920s as a result of the efforts of Raymond Dart and continues to grow. The skeletons included represent varied indigenous and immigrant populations from southern Africa, Europe and Asia. This contribution documents the history of the collection and provides an updated inventory and demographic assessment of this valuable research collection. According to a recent inventory the Dart Collection currently comprises 2,605 skeletons representing individuals from regional SA African (76%), White (15%), Coloured (4%) and Indian (0.3%) populations. A large proportion of the skeletons (71%) represent males. The recorded ages at death range from the first year to over 100 years of age, but the majority of individuals died between the ages of 20 and 70. The Dart Collection has been affected by collection procedures based on availability. All of the cadavers collected before 1958, and large proportions subsequently, were derived from unclaimed bodies in regional South African hospitals. Some details of documentation (age at death, population group) are estimates and some aspects of the collection demographics (sex ratios) do not closely reflect any living South African population. Our inventory and analysis of the Dart Collection is aimed to assist researchers planning research on the materials from this collection.

The first hominin from the early Pleistocene paleocave of Haasgat, South Africa.

Haasgat is a primate-rich fossil locality in the northeastern part of the Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here we report the first hominin identified from Haasgat, a partial maxillary molar (HGT 500), that was recovered from an ex situ calcified sediment block sampled from the locality. The in situ fossil bearing deposits of the Haasgat paleokarstic deposits are estimated to date to slightly older than 1.95 Ma based on magnetobiostratigraphy. This places the hominin specimen at a critical time period in South Africa that marks the last occurrence of Australopithecus around 1.98 Ma and the first evidence of Paranthropus and Homo in the region between ∼2.0 and 1.8 Ma. A comprehensive morphological evaluation of the Haasgat hominin molar was conducted against the current South African catalogue of hominin dental remains and imaging analyses using micro-CT, electron and confocal microscopy. The preserved occlusal morphology is most similar to Australopithecus africanus or early Homo specimens but different from Paranthropus. Occlusal linear enamel thickness measured from micro-CT scans provides an average of ∼2.0 mm consistent with Australopithecus and early Homo. Analysis of the enamel microstructure suggests an estimated periodicity of 7-9 days. Hunter-Schreger bands appear long and straight as in some Paranthropus, but contrast with this genus in the short shape of the striae of Retzius. Taken together, these data suggests that the maxillary fragment recovered from Haasgat best fits within the Australopithecus-early Homo hypodigms to the exclusion of the genus Paranthropus. At ∼1.95 Ma this specimen would either represent another example of late occurring Australopithecus or one of the earliest examples of Homo in the region. While the identification of this first hominin specimen from Haasgat is not unexpected given the composition of other South African penecontemporaneous site deposits, it represents one of the few hominin localities in the topographically-distinct northern World Heritage Site. When coupled with the substantial differences in the mammalian faunal communities between the northern localities (e.g., Haasgat, Gondolin) and well-sampled Bloubank Valley sites (e.g., Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai), the recovery of the HGT 500 specimen highlights the potential for further research at the Haasgat locality for understanding the distribution and interactions of hominin populations across the landscape, ecosystems and fossil mammalian communities of early Pleistocene South Africa. Such contextual data from sites like Haasgat is critical for understanding the transition in hominin representation at ∼2 Ma sites in the region from Australopithecus to Paranthropus and early Homo.