ANTH 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Australopithecus, Australopithecine, Sterkfontein
Document Summary
Alternative models of the hominin panin last common ancestor (lca). The branching pattern of living apes as inferred from genomic data is agreed upon; however, reconstruction of ancestral nodes differs among researchers. (a) in the african ape (aa) model, hominins derive from a knuckle-walking. African ape-like lca, typically conceived of as chimpanzee-like. (b and c) ape convergence (ac) models hypothesize that the lca is either a more generalized great ape or an unknown primitive ancestral miocene ape. These are genus names (plural genera), they may contain more than one species. Some differences btn p. robustus and: boisei. Wear patterns on teeth suggest boisei was a gramnivore. P. robustus: teeth enamel chemistry shows 60 percent of the species" diet consisted of c3 plants, which would include hard-shelled nuts and fruits: boisei: carbon isotopes in teeth show 77 percent of their diet consisted of.
