Interesting Science Picture: Part VII

While we wait for the Science article with the South African hominins, I thought I would mention that other interesting finds have come from Sterkfontein.

Know Your Anthropology Literature: Ecobotanical Contexts for African Hominids

Ecobotanical Contexts for African Hominids, by O’Brien and Peters, was published in a book edited by J. Desmond Clark entitled Cultural Beginnings: Approaches to Understanding Early Hominid Life-Ways in the African Savanna. O’Brien and Peters describe the work they are doing on a project called “Survey of the Wild Edible Plants of Africa”. The point [...]

Bipedal Locomotion and Semicircular Canals

I am currently working on a post for Transitions involving the molecular evidence for the common ancestry of apes and humans (Note: this is slow going because I am having trouble finding websites with age appropriate discussions of this material – if you know of any let me know as I hate doing posts without [...]

Dental Microwear Analysis and Australopithecines

This is pretty cool. Researchers examined several species of monkey teeth in order to determine the microwear patterns produced by a variety of different diets. They then turned their attention to the teeth of Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus: The new study by Ungar, Brown, and colleagues suggests that, on average, A. africanus probably ate [...]