LATE PLEISTOCENE HUMAN REMAINS FROM THE SEA HARVEST SITE, SALDANHA BAY, SOUTH-AFRICA

The Sea Harvest fossil site has yielded an extensive mammalian fauna, including a human manual distal phalanx and a maxillary premolar. Thes e most likely date to one of the cooler phases within the Last Inter-g laciation (isotope stage 5) between 128 and 74 kyr ago. Hyenas are imp licated as the agent of accumulation of the large mammal remains, whil e a raptor or a smaller carnivore probably introduced the smaller mamm al bones. The human specimens are comparable to modern homologues, and appear to have derived from a population that was more modern than Ne andertals in at least one respect. As such, they may add to the small number of available fossils which suggest that modern humans originate d in Africa at a time when Neandertals inhabited Europe.