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gwu [dot] edu (claire[dot]sabin[at]gwu[dot]edu)<\/p>\nMedia Contact: Claire Sabin,\u00a0claire [dot] sabingwu [dot] edu (claire[dot]sabin[at]gwu[dot]edu)<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON (January 23, 2025) \u2014\u00a0In a\u00a0new paper published in\u00a0Nature<\/a>, a team led by University of Chicago paleoanthropologist Professor\u00a0Zeresenay Alemseged<\/a> reports the discovery of the first\u00a0Paranthropus specimen from the Afar region of Ethiopia, 1000 km north of the genus\u2019 previous northernmost occurrence.\u00a0Andrew Barr<\/a>, associate professor of Anthropology at the George Washington University, is a coauthor on this piece and found, along with the research team, new information about when and where\u00a0Paranthropus existed, its adaptation to diverse environmental conditions, and how it may have interacted with other ancient relatives of modern humans including our genus\u00a0Homo.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we are to understand our own evolutionary trajectory as a genus and species, we need to understand the environmental, ecological, and competitive factors that shaped our evolution,\u201d said Alemseged, the Donald N. Pritzker Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at UChicago. \u201cThis discovery is so much more than a simple snapshot of\u00a0Paranthropus\u2019 occurrence: It sheds fresh light on the driving forces behind the evolution of the genus.\u201d<\/p>\n Paranthropus previously \u201cmissing\u201d among hominins in the Afar and northeast Africa<\/p>\n Since the human and chimpanzee lineages diverged around 7 million years ago, human ancestors went through a dramatic evolutionary process that ultimately led to the emergence of\u00a0Homo sapiens around 300,000 years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cWe strive to understand who we are and how we became to be human, and that has implications for how we behave and how we are going to impact the environment around us, and how that, in turn, is going to impact us,\u201d Alemseged said.<\/p>\n In the fossil record, the human lineage is represented by over 15 hominin species that generally fit into four groups:<\/p>\n Facultative bipeds, e.g. Ardipithecus \u2014 Occasionally bipedal but mostly living in trees and walking on all four limbs.Habitual bipeds: Australopithecus \u2014 Retained arboreality to some degree but mostly practiced upright walking and experimented with stone tools.Obligate bipeds: Homo \u2014 The genus to which modern humans belong, characterized by a larger brain, sophisticated tools and obligate bipedalism.Robust hominins: Paranthropus (also known as robust australopithecines) \u2014 Habitually bipedal like\u00a0Australopithecus but distinguished by extremely large molars capped by thick enamel and facial and muscular configurations that suggest a powerful chewing apparatus.<\/p>\n Alemseged said: \u201cHundreds of fossils representing over a dozen species of\u00a0Ardipithecus,\u00a0Australopithecus, and\u00a0Homo\u00a0had been found in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, so the apparent absence of\u00a0Paranthropus was conspicuous and puzzling to paleoanthropologists, many of whom had concluded the genus simply never ventured that far north.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cWhile some experts suggested that dietary specialization restricted\u00a0Paranthropus to southern regions, others hypothesized that this could have been the result of\u00a0Paranthropus\u2019 inability to compete with the more versatile\u00a0Homo.\u201d However, Alemseged said, \u201cneither was the case:\u00a0Paranthropus\u00a0was as widespread and versatile as\u00a0Homo and the new find shows that its absence in the Afar was an artifact of the fossil record.\u201d<\/p>\n Rethinking hominin biogeography, adaptation, and competition<\/p>\n The 2.6-million-year-old partial jaw reported in\u00a0Nature comes from the Mille-Logya research area in the Afar and is one of the oldest\u00a0Paranthropus specimens unearthed to date. After recovering as many fragments as possible from the field site, the team brought them back to Chicago to analyze internal anatomy and morphology with powerful micro-CT scanning.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a remarkable nexus: an ultra-modern technology being applied to a 2.6-million-year-old fossil to tell a story that is common to us all,\u201d Alemseged said.<\/p>\n This new find shows that\u00a0Paranthropus\u00a0was as widespread and versatile as\u00a0Homo and was not necessarily outcompeted by\u00a0Homo.<\/p>\n Paranthropus was previously nicknamed the \u201cnutcracker\u201d genus, highlighting the very large molars, thick enamel, and heavy jaws and reflecting assumptions that this chewing apparatus caused\u00a0Paranthropus to occupy a highly specialized and narrower dietary niche. But the new\u00a0Paranthropus from Afar reveals that starting from its earliest origins,\u00a0Paranthropus was widespread, versatile, and able to crack more than just nuts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe new discovery gives us insight into the competitive edges that each group had, the type of diet they were consuming, the type of muscular and skeletal adaptations that they had, whether they were using stone tools or not \u2014 all parts of their adaptation and behavior that we are trying to figure out,\u201d Alemseged said. \u201cDiscoveries like this really trigger interesting questions in terms of reviewing, revising, and then coming up with new hypotheses as to what the key differences were between the main hominin groups.\u201d<\/p>\n Research in the field and at the National Museum of Ethiopia is conducted with permission and under the auspices of the Ethiopian Heritage Authority of the Ministry of Tourism. Field work is undertaken with additional permission from the Afar Regional State Tourism and Culture Bureau. Funding to support field work was provided by Margaret and Will Hearst and the University of Chicago.<\/p>\n