Our current understanding of the origins of Homo sapiens is limited, in part, by the fragmented fossil record from Late Pleistocene and early Holocene Africa. Here, we re‐examine the Kabua 1 cranium, an enigmatic and little‐studied Kenyan fossil discovered in the 1950s. We compare virtual reconstructions created previously by our team with a wide range of Middle Pleistocene to Early Holocene fossils and recent African H. sapiens crania to assess Kabua 1's morphological affinities. We also provide a conservative new Uranium‐series minimum date of 64.4 ± 5.4 ka. Our results highlight Kabua 1's broad similarity to derived H. sapiens , both recent and fossil. Its morphology nevertheless demonstrates some more basal affinities and thus contributes to our understanding of the depth of phenotypic diversity in Late Pleistocene African H. sapiens .
Bosman et al. (Tue,) studied this question.