Journal ArticleDOI
Wild plant foods of the Makapansgat area: A modern ecosystems analogue for Australopithecus africanus adaptations
Charles R. Peters,Brian Maguire +1 more
TLDR
Comparisons of food toughness measures, previously reported data on human maximum bite forces, and maximum bite force values hypothesized for Australopithecus africanus suggest that although these fossil hominids would have been able to prepare orally many of the tough food species, it also appears likely that they would have had to process artifactually the toughest of these food items to assure their survival in this environment.About:
This article is published in Journal of Human Evolution.The article was published on 1981-11-01. It has received 55 citations till now.read more
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Dental Functional Morphology: How Teeth Work
TL;DR: In this article, the basic structure of the mammalian mouth is described and how the mouth operates, including the shape and size of the teeth, and how they fit in the mouth.
Journal ArticleDOI
The rise of the hominids as an adaptive shift in fallback foods: plant underground storage organs (USOs) and australopith origins.
Greg Laden,Richard W. Wrangham +1 more
TL;DR: It is proposed that a key change in the evolution of hominids from the last common ancestor shared with chimpanzees was the substitution of plant underground storage organs (USOs) for herbaceous vegetation as fallback foods.
Journal ArticleDOI
Characteristics of an Early Hominid Scavenging Niche [and Comments and Reply]
Robert J. Blumenschine,Henry T. Bunn,Valerius Geist,Fumiko Ikawa-Smith,Curtis W. Marean,Anthony G. Payne,John Tooby,Nikolaas J. van der Merwe +7 more
TL;DR: In this article, the characteristics of scavenging opportunities in the Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater are documented and applied to the Plio/Pleistocene East Turkana and Olduvai lake basins.
Journal ArticleDOI
Isotopic evidence of early hominin diets
Matt Sponheimer,Zeresenay Alemseged,Thure E. Cerling,Frederick E. Grine,William H. Kimbel,Meave G. Leakey,Julia A. Lee-Thorp,Fredrick K. Manthi,Kaye E. Reed,Bernard Wood,Jonathan G. Wynn +10 more
TL;DR: There is a trend toward greater consumption of 13C-enriched foods in early hominins over time, although this trend varies by region, and hominin carbon isotope ratios also increase with postcanine tooth area and mandibular cross-sectional area, which could indicate that these foods played a role in the evolution of australopith masticatory robusticity.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mechanical Properties of Plant Underground Storage Organs and Implications for Dietary Models of Early Hominins
TL;DR: The mechanical properties of USOs from 98 plant species from across sub-Saharan Africa found that rhizomes were the most resistant to deformation and fracture, followed by tubers, corms, and bulbs, and the results support assumptions that roasting lessens the work of mastication, and, by inference, the cost of digestion.
References
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Book ChapterDOI
The Seed-Eaters: A New Model of Hominid Differentiation Based on a Baboon Analogy
TL;DR: In this article, an attempt to reopen the problem of origins by examining critically some of the existing models of hominid differentiation, and to suggest a new one based on a fresh approach.
Journal ArticleDOI
Fossil hominids from the Laetolil Beds
TL;DR: The remains of 13 early hominids have been found in the Laetolil Beds in northern Tanzania, 30 miles south of Olduvai Gorge, giving an upper limit averaging 3.59 Myr and a lower limit of 3.77 Myr.
Journal ArticleDOI
Functional implications of primate enamel thickness.
Stephen Molnar,David G. Gantt +1 more
TL;DR: Preliminary results tend to support theories which explain low, thick, enameled cusps in hominids.