Giant gorilla skull exist9/7/2023 ![]() ![]() We don’t know everything about our early ancestors-but we keep learning more! Paleoanthropologists are constantly in the field, excavating new areas, using groundbreaking technology, and continually filling in some of the gaps about our understanding of human evolution.īelow are some of the still unanswered questions about P. This replaced the traditional view of a single human lineage by the notion of a human family tree with many branches (like most other family trees) we’ve been adding branches though discoveries of new species ever since. More finds have confirmed that this species was one of the most prevalent in Eastern Africa during the time period when early members of the genus Homo were also present. This discovery cleared up a long time controversy and confirmed that more than one species of early humans lived in the same geographical area at the same time. erectus specimen KNM-ER 3733 in the same stratigraphic layer was the first example of species coexistence. boisei belongs to just one of the many side branches of human evolution, which most scientists agree includes all Paranthropus species and did not lead to H. aethiopicus (who inhabited the same geographic area just a few hundred thousand years before) and lived alongside several other species of early humans during its 1.1 million year existence. boisei is usually thought to descend from earlier P. This species lived in environments that were dominated by grasslands but also included more closed, wet habitats associated with rivers and lakes. It's possible that this species only ate hard or tough foods during times when its preferred resources were scarce, relying on them as fallback foods. boisei skull and teeth indicate it could have chewed hard or tough foods, dental microwear analysis does not demonstrate that they regularly did so, suggesting a wider, more diverse diet for P. ![]() boisei teeth are more similar to living fruit-eaters with fine striations, rather than large, deep pits seen in the teeth of living species that eat grass, tough leaves and stems, or other hard, brittle foods. Those features show that Paranthropus boisei likely ate tough foods like roots and nuts. This species was nicknamed Nutcracker Man for its big teeth and strong chewing muscles, which attached to the large crest on the skull. Science, Religion, Evolution and Creationism: Primer.Members Thoughts on Science, Religion & Human Origins (video).Teaching Evolution through Human Examples.Digital Archive of Ungulate and Carnivore Dentition.Adventures in the Rift Valley: Interactive.Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program Main Menu ![]()
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