When it comes to our evolutionary brethren, Neanderthals get most of the attention. This is partly understandable, since there was a time in Earth's history when the role the dominant primate was up for grabs. Customize any number of environmental factorsAnd instrument proficiency, yarn Neanderthal man may have outlived his Homo sapiens cousins (also known as humans) rather than going extinct about 40,000 years ago.
However, the focus on Neanderthals often ignores dozens of others ancient hominin species existing for hundreds of thousands of years in various parts of the planet. The man stood upfor example, may have been one of our first relatives migrate to EuropeBye Man from Bodo a characteristic three-part segmented eyebrow has developed.
Now one of our lesser-known ancestors is in the spotlight. Recent analysis of fossil remains in Kenya allegedly shows that Paranthropis boisei was fully capable of making and using his own tools. The evidence is detailed in a study published Oct. 15 in the journal. Nature.
Paranthropus the genus probably diverged from one of our common Australopithecus ancestors more than three million years ago. However, evidence that the species went extinct some 1.8 million years later is largely limited to fossilized skulls and teeth. The lack of fossil evidence made it difficult for experts to speculate about the rest of its anatomy. Although the teams found both homo And Paranthropus The remains are scattered across the same sites in South Africa, Tanzania and Ethiopia, and researchers have often assumed that any associated stone tools must have belonged to the latter group.
Now, skeletal fragments discovered between 2019 and 2021 on the eastern side of Kenya's Lake Turkana are being rewritten P. boiseistory. In this case, the sample is about 1.5 million years old and includes the first known hand and foot bones directly associated with hominins. Paleoanthropologists already knew that P. boisei were distinguished by powerful jaws and large teeth, but recent excavations further illustrate the physical body of this species. Although these relatives had human-like hand proportions, their grip strength likely resembled that of modern apes.
“The hand shows that it can form precise grips similar to ours while maintaining powerful grasping abilities similar to those of gorillas, and the foot is clearly adapted for bipedal walking,” study co-author Carrie Mongle and an anthropologist at Stony Brook University. explained in the statement.
Mongle and her colleagues also noted that although P. boisei could manipulate stone tools, as well as early homo species, they did not have the more specialized wrist structure seen in humans and Neanderthals. This may be partly due to their different ecological roles. Early homo Species have evolved over time to become more reliant on tools, but Paranthropus Anatomy suggests that their specialized plant-based diet reduced this need.
“'[P. boisei] converged with gorilla morphology in ways that are consistent with obtaining and processing tougher plant foods with the hands, and these powerful grasping abilities would also be quite useful for climbing,” said Kaylee Orr, study co-author and developmental biologist at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine.
According to co-author Louise Leakey, the revised understanding P. boisei is part of an “exciting new era in paleoanthropology.” She finds out first hand…her own (much closer) relatives also have strong connections to early human ancestors.
“[The field] has changed and grown a lot since my grandparents discovered the first skull Paranthropus boisei in Olduvai, and my parents first began focusing their research on the fossil-rich Turkana Basin in Kenya,” she said.
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