Abstract: The cranium found at Bodo of Middle Awash area in Ethiopia is derived from Middle Pleis-tocene deposits with the age about 0.6 Ma. The Bodo cranium is the most complete and oldest Middle Pleistocene human fossil ever found in the world. Because both the morphological features of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens can be identified on the Bodo cranium, the affinity of Bodo cranium has been in debate.Rightmire believes that the Bodo cranium with more resemblance to the archaic Homo sapiens of Broken Hill and Petralona is the representative of the transitions from Homo erectus to archaic Homo sapiens in Africa. At least as early as 0.6 Ma the speciation event of the transition from Homo erectus to the archaic Homo sapiens happened in Africa,which is much earlier than in Asia and Europe. The human fossils represented by the Bodo cranium and otherMiddle Pleistocene specimens form Africa and Europe constitute an assemblage of Homo heidelbergensis,which may be the direct ancestor of later humans. These opinions led to the discussions of the emergence time of the archaic Homo sapiens in Africa and Eurasia, and the relationship between the humans of Middle Pleistocene in Africa and Eurasia.
For this background, in this paper the comparisons of morphological features between the Bodo cranium and the Homo erectus of Zhoukoudian were carried out. Out results show that several feature of the Bodo cranium resemble those of Zhoukoudian Homo erectus. Some other features including the cra-nial capacity exhibits the patterns of later Homo sapiens. In its overall morphology, the Bodo cranium seems to be closer to Homo erectus. The authors believe that even though the morphological mosaic pattern of human evolution can be found in the human fossil records of China, the uncertainty of the ages of Chinese human fossils makes no reliable evidence to demonstrate contemporary or earlier occurrence of the mosaic pattern of Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens as in Africa. Taking the big time gap of between African and Asian Homo erectus, and the unsynchronism and regional variations of human evolution into considerations, it is possible for the humans with more advanced features first appeared in Africa. Based on the comparisons in the present study, the mosaic patterns in the human evolution, and the differences of the Middle Pleistocene human evolution in Africa and Asia are discussed.

Key words: Human evolution; Homo erectus; Archaic Homo sapiens; Bodo; Zhoukoudian