Word: australopithecus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...result of these findings is a radical revision of long-held views of evolution. As recently as a decade ago, scientists talked about a direct, unbranching line of descent ?Australopithecus, Homo erectus, modern man?one following the other in logical order. Now all that has changed. "We can no longer talk of a great chain of being in the 19th century sense, from which there is a missing link," says Phillip Tobias, 51, Dart's successor as professor of anatomy at the University of the Witwatersrand medical school in Johannesburg. "We should think rather of multiple strands forming...
Though scientists have found practically no telltale fossils from the crucial period between 8 million and 5 million years ago, anthropologists speculate that some time toward the end of this period the hominid line split into the species Australopithecus robustus and africanus. There was also a third species, which some anthropologists believe branched off at the same time, and others think evolved later from A. africanus. Whatever the case, it is generally agreed that the third species was not an Australopithecus, but the first creature that could rightfully be called Homo?...
...evidence shows the split that produced the first human must have occurred longer ago than 3.5 million years?the age of the oldest known Homo fossils, which were found in 1975 by Mary Leakey. Again, the rigorous demands of savanna living may have been responsible for the branching out. Australopithecus africanus, straining to augment its food supply in the flat grasslands, began to eat meat?probably obtaining it not by hunting, but by scavenging the kills left behind by large predators. Australopithecus robustus, on the other hand, continued to subsist largely on seeds and nuts. Both eventually died out, unable...
While his Australopithecus cousins foraged or scavenged, Homo habilis began to make tools and to hunt. Both actions accelerated his evolution. Toolmaking, which required reasoning and more complex neurological hookups, gave a survival advantage to the creatures with the biggest brains. That led to an increase in brain size. Hunting, with its emphasis on outwitting animals that were either faster, stronger or fiercer than the hominids that hunted them, also stimulated rapid brain growth. In addition, says Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan, it placed a premium on cooperation, strengthening the bond between members of the group and starting...
...Then, in 1963, on a chance flight over Lake Natron in northern Tanzania, he spotted what looked like interesting sediment beds and, encouraged by his parents, set off to explore the area. His first expedition proved to be a success; the team he assembled found a fragment from an Australopithecus robustus. He decided to become an anthropologist...