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Tests Show Pre-humans Had it Tough

Tests Show Pre-humans Had it Tough

Was there a famine 2 million years ago in the Cradle of Humankind? A drought?

Nobody will ever really know, but a new study of the jaw of Australopithecus sediba has suggested to evolutionary scientists that times were tough before the two pre-humans, the fossils of which were discovered in a cave in Malapa in 2008, died.

The study, published on 8 February in the journal Nature Communications, describes biomechanical testing of a computer-based model of an Australopithecus sediba skull.

What was found was that biting too hard would have dislocated the jaw of A. sediba.

This differs from research in 2012 which suggested this possible early human ancestor had lived on a diverse woodland diet which included hard foods mixed with tree bark, fruit, leaves and other plant products.

This new research by a team which includes Professor Lee Berger and Kristian Carlson from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits University shows that A. sediba didn’t have the jaw and tooth structure necessary to exist on a steady diet of hard foods.

Carlson told The Star that A. sediba might have been eating “fall-back food”, things you would only eat when you are desperate, such as when there is a famine or drought.

They would have preferred to eat fruits, for instance, rather than breaking open nuts with their teeth, eating bark or small fruit with hard piths such as cherries which other Australopiths would be able to eat.

The model used in the study is based on the fossil skull recovered by Berger’s team in 2008 from Malapa, a cave about 40km west of Joburg.

Australopithecus sediba is a diminutive pre-human species that lived about 2 million years ago in southern Africa. It has been heralded as a possible human ancestor or close relative of Homo.

Australopiths appear in the fossil record about 4 million years ago, and although they have some human traits such as the ability to walk upright on two legs, most lack other characteristically human features.

Human members of the genus Homo are almost certainly descended from an Australopith ancestor, and A. sediba is a candidate to be either that ancestor or something similar to it.

“Most Australopiths had amazing adaptations in their jaws, teeth and faces that allowed them to process foods that were difficult to chew or crack open. Among other things, they were able to efficiently bite down on foods with very high forces,” said Professor David Strait, team leader and anthropologist from Washington University in St Louis.

– Copy and picture credit: www.iol.co.za

Pictured: The fossilised skull of Australopithecus sediba specimen MH1 and a finite element model of its cranium depicting strains experienced during a simulated bite on its premolars. “Warm” colours indicate regions of high strain, while “cool” colours indicate regions of low strain. The image of MH1 by Brett Eloff was provided courtesy of Lee Berger and the University of the Witwatersrand. Picture: Brett Eloff

 

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