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Palaeoanthropology

One skull does not a species make

Nature volume 389, pages 445–446 (1997)Cite this article

The palaeoanthropology community must look quite Pavlovian to outsiders — we all drool predictably every time a new fossil is discovered. In fact, such new specimens may be important not only in their own right, but in terms of wider implications for the field. Such a fossil from Konso in Ethiopia is described on page 489of this issue by Suwa and colleagues1, almost 40 years after Mary Leakey found, and Louis Leakey described2, the first known member of its species.

Australopithecus (or Paranthropus) boisei is the morphologically most specialized member of an extinct early human clade (branch), which separated from the lineage that eventually led to living people some 3-2.5 million years ago (Myr). These so-called robust australopiths were characterized by extremely large and thickly enamelled molar teeth and jaws, which were moved by massive chewing muscles attached to a sagittal crest (fore-and-aft ridge of bone) on top of the relatively small-brained cranium. In the two later species of this group — East African P. boisei and South African P. robustus — the incisors and canines were strongly reduced, and were even smaller than our own.

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Figure 1: Map showing some of the East African localities that have yielded fossils of Paranthropus.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. American Museum of Natural History, New York, 10024, New York

    Eric Delson

  2. Department of Anthropology, Lehman College, Bronx, 10468, New York, USA

    Eric Delson

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  1. Eric Delson
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Delson, E. One skull does not a species make. Nature 389, 445–446 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/38912

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