Sentences with phrase «australopithecus africanus»

We characterized pelvic shape using a set of 23 3D landmarks in living hominoids: Homo, Pan, Gorilla, Pongo, Hylobates, and Nomascus; three early hominins: Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus afarensis, and Australopithecus africanus; and a Miocene ape, Ekembo nyanzae (Methods and SI Appendix, Fig.

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

An example of a human precision grip, grasping an Australopithecus africanus thumb bone dating to 3.2 million years ago.

Meet «Mrs. Ples,» the popular nickname for the most complete skull of an Australopithecus africanus, unearthed in Sterkfontein, South Africa in 1947.

The researchers found that Australopithecus africanus had human - like hands that were capable of precision grips, such as squeezing small objects.

The Copeland team analyzed the teeth of 19 hominins: eleven Paranthropus robustus individuals from Swartkrans, fating to 1.8 million years ago and eight Australopithecus africanus individuals, 2.2 ma from nearby Sterkfontein.

By studying the hand bones of the Australopithecus africanus, researchers found that these ape - like human ancestors had human - like hands capable of using stone tools.

New research suggests pre-Homo human ancestral species, such as Australopithecus africanus, used human - like hand postures much earlier than was previously thought.

Here we show that Australopithecus africanus (~ 3 to 2 million years ago) and several Pleistocene hominins, traditionally considered not to have engaged in habitual tool manufacture, have a human - like trabecular bone pattern in the metacarpals consistent with forceful opposition of the thumb and fingers typically adopted during tool use.

In this study, we use microtomography to undertake the first comprehensive study of maxillary and mandibular premolar root and canal variation in Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus (n = 166 teeth) within and between the species.

The research, titled «Human - like hand use in Australopithecus africanus, shows that Australopithecus africanus,» a 3 - 2 million - year - old species from South Africa traditionally considered not to have engaged in habitual tool manufacture, has a human - like trabecular bone pattern in the bones of the thumb and palm (the metacarpals) consistent with forceful opposition of the thumb and fingers typically adopted during tool use.

When Whitcome's team compared the spines of one male and one female Australopithecus africanus, an early bipedal hominid that lived roughly 2 million years ago, it found differences in the number of wedged vertebrae.

Until Little Foot was found, the earliest hominin species known in South Africa was Australopithecus africanus, which is generally believed to have lived between 2 million and 3 million years ago.

Two South African hominids from between roughly 1 million and 3 million years ago, Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, show lower rates of tooth chipping than H. naledi, at about 21 percent and 13 percent, respectively, the investigators find.

One display case contains the casts of an array of hominid skulls: the robust, massive - jawed 1.6 - million - year - old Paranthropus robustus from Swartkrans, South Africa; the flat - faced 1.7 - million - year - old Paranthropus boisei from East Turkana, Kenya; the tiny skull and fossilized brain of the 2.5 - million - year - old Taung child, or Australopithecus africanus, found at Sterkfontein, South Africa.

Finally, they looked at metacarpals from four Australopithecus africanus individuals, up to 3 million years old.

In this inherited malady, the brain is typically just 400 cc — roughly the same size as that of the early hominid Australopithecus africanus, of which «Lucy» is the best - known specimen.

When paleoanthropologist Lee Berger unearthed a fossil near Johannesburg, South Africa, it seemed to be a jumble of parts: a braincase similar in size to that of an Australopithecus africanus, a Homo erectus pelvis, and the arms of a Miocene ape.

He called the skull Australopithecus africanus and argued that it showed we evolved in Africa.

At the time, Falk argued that four endocasts from southern African hominids — three Australopithecus africanus and one Australopithecus sediba — showed folding patterns that suggested that brain reorganization was underway as early as 3 million years ago in a frontal area involved in human speech production.

Not exact matches

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

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

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.

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.