Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Paranthropus aethiopicus is an extinct species of robust australopithecine from the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of East Africa about 2.7–2.3 million years ago. However, it is much debated whether or not Paranthropus is an invalid grouping and is synonymous with Australopithecus, so the species is also often classified as Australopithecus aethiopicus. [1]
KNM-WT 17000 (also known as "The Black Skull") is a fossilized adult skull of the species Paranthropus aethiopicus. It was discovered in West Turkana, Kenya by Alan Walker in 1985. [1] Estimated to be 2.5 million years old, the fossil is an adult with an estimated cranial capacity of 410 cc. [1] [2]
A P. aethiopicus ulna, on the other hand, shows more similarities to Homo than P. boisei. [46] Paranthropus were bipeds, and their hips, legs and feet resemble A. afarensis and modern humans. [48] [49] The pelvis is similar to A. afarensis, but the hip joints are smaller in P. robustus. The physical similarity implies a similar walking gait. [50]
It was long assumed that if Paranthropus is a valid genus then P. robustus was the ancestor of P. boisei, but in 1985, anthropologists Alan Walker and Richard Leakey found that the 2.5-million-year-old East African skull KNM WT 17000—which they assigned to a new species A. aethiopicus|A. aethiopicus—was ancestral to A. boisei (they ...
The genus Paranthropus (otherwise known as "robust australopithecines") typically includes P. boisei, P. aethiopicus and P. robustus. It is debated if Paranthropus is a valid natural grouping (monophyletic) or an invalid grouping of similar-looking hominins (paraphyletic).
While none of the groups normally directly assigned to this group survived, the australopithecines do not appear to be literally extinct (in the sense of having no living descendants) as the genera Kenyanthropus, Paranthropus, and Homo probably emerged as sisters of a late Australopithecus species such as A. africanus and/or A. sediba.
They might be the product of Australopithecus garhi or Paranthropus aethiopicus, the two known hominins contemporary with the tools. [9] Genus Homo is assumed to have emerged by around 2.8 million years ago, with Homo habilis being found at Lake Turkana, Kenya.
Paranthropus aethiopicus' sagittal crest on top of the head. A sagittal crest is a ridge of bone running lengthwise along the midline of the top of the skull (at the sagittal suture) of many mammalian and reptilian skulls, among others. The presence of this ridge of bone indicates that there are exceptionally strong jaw muscles.