The Human Fossil Record:
A Digital Resource for Research and Education

This archive contains tomographic scans (as well as various types of associated digital data) of fossils from the site of Swartkrans, South Africa that are curated at the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History. These scans were produced through a collaborative research and education initiative between the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig, Germany) and the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History (Pretoria, South Africa). They were published in Skinner MM, de Ruiter, DJ, Imbrasas, M, Martin, R, Davies, T, Pickering TR, Hublin J-J, Tawane, M (2023) Microtomographic archive of fossil hominin specimens from Swartkrans (1948-1967), South Africa, 202x:x: xxx−xxx and we encourage users to refer to this article for more information about the fossils and scans.The copyright holder for all digital data (and derivates, such as surface models) associated with this archive is the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History (DNMNH).

Terms of use

Researchers interested in accessing the CT scans should fill out a Digital Data Agreement Form and email it to curator of the DNMNH (Lazarus Kgasi, lkgasi@Ditsong.org.za; please also copy (cc) origins_datarequest@eva.mpg.de) with a description of their project proposal and specific specimens and CT data that they wish to use for their project. Upon acceptance of the proposed research project the CT scan(s) will be transferred to you electronically. Inclusion of data in a scientific publication based on the CT scans (and derivative objects such as surface models, images, etc.,) requires citation of the following article:

Skinner, M.M., Imbrasas, M.D., Martin, R.M.G., Tawane, M., Hublin, J.J., Pickering, T.R., De Ruiter, D.J. (2024) Microtomographic archive of fossil hominin specimens from Swartkrans (1948-1967), South Africa, PaleoAnthroplogy, 202x:x: xxx−xxx.


The article is currently in Early View and can be accessed through this link.