Research by SB Professor Makes Time Magazine's Top 10 Scientific Discoveries of 2007

STONY BROOK, NY - Groundbreaking research revealing the first fossil evidence that, modern humans left Africa between 65,000 and 25,000 years ago has been ranked as No. 8 in Time magazine's Top 10 Scientific Discoveries of the Year. Published on January in Science magazine, the research was carried out by an international team of scientists on the origins of modern humans led by Frederick Grine from the Departments of Anthropology and Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University.

Grine highlighted that recognition and publicity from such a prestigious magazine may garner more attention and support from the public on the heated debate of including evolutionary studies in schools and higher education institutions.

The basis of the evidence, the Hofmeyr skull, was discovered in 1952 near the town of Hofmeyr in Eastern Cape, South Africa. The team was finally able to date the skull using a new approach to dating developed by Grine and his colleagues at Oxford University .

Paleontological evidence from sub-Saharan Africa has long been devoid of human fossils from the period between about 70,000 and 15,000 years ago, a critical period in human evolutionary history. By dating the skull to 36,000 years, the team provided a key piece of evidence to the "Out of Africa" theory of modern human origins.

The research was a collaboration between Stony Brook University and the universities of Bristol, Oxford, Cape Town, Montreal, and the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig. Grine will be traveling back to South Africa this month until March 2008 with isotope specialists from the UK and US to work with geologists in South Africa carrying out further analysis on the region where the skull was discovered.

"The primary hypothesis is that the owners of the skull did not live in the same area that they died," explained Grine.

The Hofmeyr skull is currently being studied at Cambridge University where Grine is on sabbatical for this academic year. Talking out of his office at Cambridge, Grine was caught by surprise in learning about the recognition, but remained highly appreciative and humble on his achievements.

"To tell you the truth, I have really bad luck at finding fossils," joked Grine when asked about future excavation plans.

Grine's research also extends to the hominid fossil record, with particular reference to the problems of species recognition and differentiation in the Pliocene and early Pleistocene, and the reconstruction of phylogenetic relationships among extinct taxonomic groups. He is interested in dental morphology as it relates to issues of taxonomy and function.

Grine obtained his first bachelor's degree from Washington and Jefferson College in 1974, before pursuing his B.Sc. (1975) and Ph.D. (1984) from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa . He began lecturing at Stony Brook in 1983 and went on to be promoted to a professorship shortly after. During his time at Stony Brook, he has been the chairman of the Department of Anthropology at from 2001 to 2007, and the Program Organizer of the 2006 Human Evolution Workshop at Stony Brook.

He is the author, editor and co-editor of four books, has published 120 scientific research articles, and well over 100 refereed conference proceedings, published abstracts, book reviews and other contributions. He has been awarded close to $1 million in research grants from prestigious organizations including the National Geographic, Wenner-Gren, National Science, and Leakey Foundations.

For more information on the groundbreaking research, see archived article: http://www.grad.sunysb.edu/newsletter/Hofmeyr%20skull.htm.