South meets East around a set of nutcrackers.
In South Africa Prof. Ramond dart in the twilight of his career had trained an apprentice and successor in Phillip Tobias. The two of them would meet a jubilant Louis Leakey in Central Africa in the Congo at the 4th Pan African Congress on Prehistory.
The new skull brought there by Leakey created no small stir, much excitement and no shortage of applause. It was here that Tobias, impressed with the size of the teeth and jaws, remarked "I have never seen a more remarkable set of nutcrackers".
The press heard it... the nickname stuck and "nutcracker man" it was from then onward.
Leakey, right from when he first set eyes on the specimen, saw the similarities to Australopithecenes but was convinced that no small brained Australopithecene could ever create tools and therefore had assigned a new genus to the skull - zinjanthropus because it was found surrounded by stone tools.
The scientists from the south who had found the first Austrolopiths simply concluded that this was and Australopith and they therefore, in spite of small brains, must have been capable of creating tools.
Despite this controversy surrounding this new find, which has basically become the norm, and still continues around new finds in paleo-anthropology to this day, Louis Leakey was once again treated like a celebrity as he toured the globe with his new skull.
The shackles of career past were now completely completely broken. He delivered 66 lectures in 17 universities and other institutions in little over a month. His tale of perseverance against all odds now came in handy. He quickly raised a grant $20 000 from National Geographic, more money than the East African operations had ever had before.
Philip Tobias, after thorough evaluation, would conclude that zinjanthropus was inappropriate as a new genus since this definitely was an austrolopithicene. It was however a new species and retained the boise portion.
Scholars have debated why this early human relative had such strong jaws, indicating a diet of hard foods like nuts, yet their teeth seemed to be made for consuming soft foods. Damage to the tooth enamel also indicated they had come into contact with an abrasive substance. Previous research using stable isotope analyses suggests the diet of these homimins was largely composed of C4 plants like grasses and sedges. However, a debate has raged over whether such high-fibre foods could ever be of sufficiently high quality for a large-brained, medium-sized hominin.
muy interesante
@gavvet It’s not hard to understand why Paranthropus boisei is often called the Nutcracker Man. The hominid’s massive molars and enormous jaw make it seem pretty obvious that the species spent a lot of time chomping on hard nuts and seeds. Yet, the only direct evidence of P. boisei‘s meals—the chemistry and microscopic scratches of the teeth—hint that the species probably didn’t crack nuts all that much, instead preferring the taste of grass. A team of anthropologists that recently reviewed the possible diets of several early hominid species has highlighted this paradox of the Nutcracker Man and the difficulties in reconstructing the diets of our ancient kin. The first place anthropologists start when analyzing diet is the size and shape of the hominid’s teeth and jaws. Then they look for modern primates that have similar-looking dentition to see what they eat. For example, monkeys that eat a lot of leaves have molars with sharp cusps for shearing the tough foliage. On the other hand, monkeys that eat a lot of fruit have low, rounded molar cusps. If you found a hominid with either of those traits, you’d have a starting point for what the species ate.
But the morphology of a species’ teeth and jaws only shows what the hominid was capable of eating, not necessarily what it typically ate. In some cases, these physical traits might reflect the fallback foods that a species relied on when its preferred foods were unavailable during certain times of the year
It's been a long time ago in the South West that many people have died almost there
I just wonder at which point our ancient Hominid ancestors began consuming meat, thereby making their brains and by extension ours still larger.
That's a great discovery, I used to think the nutcracker man only existed in story books.
It's good science makes us discover real things.
South meets east
sounds like something Korea needs to do
:)
Whao!! what a thorough research made. 👍👍
I believe that we should not underestimate with the concepts that the brain of the species found should not be underestimated, perhaps you can see and distinguish that although it has the medical ability that says that having a small brain could not create tools, it could be something new for the compression of new cells or microcoscopic functions of the same brain system. Which would be an advance .
Thats an other nice discovery. There are many hidden mysteries in our history and many fact that scientist dont want to believe. But the ancient societies were definitely more advanced than we are today !
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvote this reply.