Sentences with phrase «australopithecines made»

Stone tools have been found at sites with Australopithecus fossils, as well as bones with possible cut marks dating back to 3.2 million to 3.4 million years ago, but in the absence of a fossil hand gripping a tool, it has been impossible to prove that australopithecines made and used tools.

Because the earliest Homo remains date to just 2.3 million years ago, scientists can be certain that an australopithecine made the cut marks on the 3.4 - million - year - old Dikika bones.

Not exact matches

That skeleton makes sense if australopithecines slept in trees at night to escape predators, as chimps do today.

Footprints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, show that the australopithecines that made them 3.75 million years ago had longer toes, a shallower arch, and a more apelike big toe that jutted slightly away from the other toes.

Around 2 million years ago, only about one in 10 Australopithecines — the modest - brained hominids exemplified by the famous fossil Lucy — who made it to adulthood lived to twice the age of sexual maturity.

Anthropologists have long assumed that the short stature of australopithecines like Lucy was related to treetop living: Having short legs makes it easier to climb trees and gives stability when balancing on branches.

Partridge et al. (2003) claimed an age of 4 million years, which if correct would make Stw 573 one of the oldest known australopithecine fossils, and easily the oldest from South Africa.