NARMADA (Hathnora)
LOCATION
Surface find (but apparently in situ) on an alluvial
terrace of the Narmada river, 200 m W of Hathnora
village, Sehor District, Madhya Pradesh, central India.
DISCOVERY
A. Sonakia, December 1982.MATERIAL
Right half of an adult calvaria.DATING AND STRATIGRAPHIC CONTEXT
Vertebrate fossils and stone tools have long been known
from the sandy/silty boulder conglomerate in which the
Narmada hominid (which shows minimal signs of
rolling) was found. Paleomagnetically these deposits fall
well within the Brunhes Chron; de Lumley and Sonakia
(1985) dated them to the end of the Middle Pleis-
tocene, based on the presence of Stegondon ganesa and an
“archaic form” of Elephas hysudricus, while others (e.g.,
Badam, 1989) prefer an early Late Pleistocene attribu-
tion. On balance the late Middle Pleistocene age seems
preferred by most commentators, although Elephas
hysudricus turns out to be an equivocal stratigraphic in-
&cator, appearing elsewhere as early as the Matuyama
Chron (Berggren et al., 1985).ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
de Lumley and Sonakia (1985) describe the lithics
found in the Narmada boulder conglomerate as beingmostly handaxes and cleavers representing an “Upper
Acheulean industry.”PREVIOUS DESCRIPTIONS AND ANALYSES
In his initial description of the specimen, Sonakia
(reported in Kennedy et al., 1991) assigned the
Narmada hominid to the new subspecies Homo erectus
narmadensis, based on a morphometric study. In a
later report (de Lumley and Sonakia, 1885), the sub-
species designation was dropped, but the assignment
to Homo erectus remained. Kennedy et al. (1991)
discussed the difficulties involved in recognizing
Homo erectus and concluded, after further morphome-
tric comparisons of Narmada with other hominids,
that there was little justification for such an attri-
bution. Instead, they were “confident in regarding
Narmada as an early (“archaic”) Homo supiens fossil
from India” (p. 492). Holloway (2000) g‘ ives an
estimated cranial volume of 1200 ml.MORPHOLOGY
R side of cranium with damaged L parietal; occipital
obscured. Described from cast and photographs.
Moderately large, long, somewhat tall, relatively
narrow cranium. In profile, lower part of frontal rises
steeply from shallow posttoral plane; may have begun
to curve back about halfway up. Preserved profile from
just in front of bregma to about halfway along parietal
is smoothly curved; it turns down gently above region
of mastoid process. Viewed from rear, it appears skull
was very tall and narrow, with its widest point across
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