New hominin dental remains from Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)

Olduvai Gorge (misspelling of the Maa word Oldupai), in northern Tanzania, is among the most iconic sites for the study of human evolution (Fig. 1A–C). Olduvai deposits have yielded an outstanding hominin record, spanning the last 2 Ma and including fossils attributed to at least four species: Paranthropus boisei, Homo habilis, Homo ergaster/erectus, and Homo sapiens (e.g., Leakey, 1965, 1971; Tobias, 1967, 1991; Leakey and Roe, 1995). More than 100 years of research at the site have provided valuable insights into the early evolution of hominids and the development of early human technology (Pante et al., 2020; Domínguez-Rodrigo and Baquedano, 2023; Domínguez-Rodrigo et al., 2023). In the recent years, collaborators of the Tanzania Human Origins Research (THOR) project have recovered two hominin teeth (Fig. 2A and B) during surveys at Olduvai Gorge. In this contribution, we present the context of the findings, describe the morphology of the teeth, and analyze them to assess their identity and taxonomic affiliation. Teeth are also analyzed using synchrotron microtomography (μCT)-based methods for the first time as far as the Olduvai hominin record is concerned. Here, we provide a description and a morphometric analysis of the new dental remains, suggesting a taxonomic attribution.