Debbie Argue

PhD Candidate in Archaeology

Email: debbie.argue@anu.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 6125 0585

Thesis title: Who’s related to whom in early Pleistocene Homo?

I am undertaking a PhD studying early Pleistocene fossil hominids. For many years these fossils were considered to comprise one species – Homo erectus. As significantly more Homo fossils are purported to be H. erectus, and other new fossil Homo from this era are attributed to new species, I question what the range in variation observed in Homo during the Early Pleistocene represents. Soon after I commenced my PhD, Homo floresiensis, a diminutive and seemingly archaic hominin that existed until just 12,000 years ago, was launched onto an unsuspecting world. Although H. floresiensis is not known from the early Pleistocene, after some initial analyses I could see that it closely resembled some of the Early Pleistocene fossil hominins that I am studying, and that it indeed likely to be an early hominin. H. floresiensis is now a critical part of my thesis.