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.
Using ancient DNA from 281
individual moas from four different species, including Dinornis
robustus (at 2 meters, the tallest moa, able to reach foliage 3.6 meters above the ground), and radiocarbon dating, Allentoft and his colleagues set out to determine the moas» genetic and population history over the last 4000 years.