Sentences with phrase «a. africanus»

A. africanus lived in southern Africa about 3.3 million years ago.

In addition, a new reconstruction has recently been made, and an examination of the meatus angle (the pitch of the face onto the cranium) for example, shows the following: common chimpanzee 49 °, A. africanus 47 - 53 °, P. boisei 53 °, and H. habilis (including KNM - ER 1470) 52 - 53 °.

These observations support studies of the postcranial fossil record which have concluded that H. erectus was an obligatory biped, whereas A. africanus showed a locomotor repertoire comprising facultative bipedalism as well as arboreal climbing.

For example, he wonders if all australopiths had human - like hands, or if it was just A. africanus.

That's why the bone (in A. africanus) has remodeled in response to that more human - like hand use.»

A. africanus has long puzzled scientists because of its massive jaws and teeth, but they now believe the species» skull design was optimal for cracking nuts and seeds.

Both hominids were about 1.2 metres tall and lightly built, with ape - sized brains and bodies resembling A. africanus, which is thought to have been a direct ancestor of humans.

When the team scanned hand bones from four members of A. africanus that lived in South Africa between 2 million and 3 million years ago, they found that the pattern of the trabecular bone was asymmetrical, as in modern humans and Neandertals that use tools frequently (as they also show in their study).

This suggests that A. africanus was using a «human - like» precision grip «much earlier and more frequently than previously considered,» the authors write.

Future studies will be needed to see if this pattern is found just in A. africanus or in other members of Australopithecus as well, says paleoanthropologist Brian Richmond of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

They stop short of saying that A. africanus was using and making stone tools and acknowledge that these grips could have been used for a number of different activities with tools.

A. africanus is closely related to Lucy and her kin (Australopithecus afarensis), the gracile hominids found in the East African Rift Valley at Hadar, at Laetoli in Tanzania and elsewhere.

Many anthropologists have argued that A. africanus couldn't be our direct ancestor largely because of timing: The earliest known members of the genus Homo — though their classification remains controversial and their fossils fragmentary — turn up in East Africa soon after A. africanus appears in South Africa.

This suggested that A. africanus was a parallel evolutionary line to our own, and that some other species gave rise to the line that eventually became human.

The study found Karabo most likely to be ancestral to the genus Homo — but not a descendent of A. africanus.

Clarke argues that Little Foot, which he classifies as Australopithecus prometheus, represents a more primitive, separate species from A. africanus.

A. afarensis and A. africanus displayed pelvic arrangements for upright walking, but not for Ardi's apelike climbing power.

In a paper describing the fossil remains in the April 9 Science, Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and his colleagues suggest that A. africanus gave rise to A. sediba, which in turn gave rise to Homo.

Features such as small brain size, slight build and very long arms link the creature to the australopithecines, especially A. africanus.

They detected these same modifications in a skeleton of A. africanus, another australopithecine that roamed South Africa between 2 million and 3 million years ago.

Most experts agree that our genus evolved from a species of Australopithecus — either A. afarensis (Lucy's species) or A. africanus.

It's possible A. africanus were using other types of tools, like bones or pieces of wood.

Not exact matches

A. deyiremeda might have been an ancestor of Homo, Paranthropus or Australopithecus africanus, Haile - Selassie suggests.