The first Robustus
Two years after Dr. Brooms successful escapade to the Sterkfontein caves, he would have another species to contend with and name from the farm next door.
This would be the first example of the "robust" australipithecines. He gave them their own genus (paranthropus) at first, which of course angered the British scientists.
By Ditsong National Museum of Natural History , CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
They had far bigger teeth and skulls and later even their bones would be found to be far more "robust" than the other more "gracile" australipiths.
The skull was found by a 15 year old schoolboy, Gert Terblanche on the farm Kromdraai. In trying to remove a souvenir he broke off the palate and some teeth and took them to show his schoolmates and the manager at Sterkfontein. Once Broom saw the palate he rushed off to the school to find Gert and the rest of the teeth. Together they were able to locate the rest of the skull still embedded in the rock and the beautiful specimen pictured above was the final result.
It was first named paranthropus robustus or "robust creature next to man". The genus paranthropus has fallen out of use in favor of placing them with the australopithicenes which have since been found in many places in Africa and with many variations.
Very intersting stuff, who would have there would be another species, just next door, could also have been neigbours, nice discovery, interesting read, thanks for the post.
This is amazing.
It took great effort to keep this robus. I know Gert Terblanche must have been an intelligent boy to have thought of taken such steps that brought about this discovery.
I wonder how weird it would have been in the beginning when people found out that their were so many different species to HUMANS also.
Yeah i mean they were our ancestors but still, it feels weird to think that someday, our teeth, eyes, and facial structure would be studied by our future generations.
This body on which we are so proud, such attachment and full of ego, this would someday be nothing but just a subject to study !!!
Life is weird.
Nice piece @gavvet !! Keep it up :)
I really like the posts of inventions and discoveries because it give the essence or push for more exploration means in my opinion we are living in an world which is still an great mystery and as days passing we can witness news inventions and discoveries and in my opinion the ancient people were not less intelligent or educated, after watching the architectural structures and their construction it will reflect that they were more intelligent and explorative. Thanks for sharing this post with us and wishing you an great day. Stay blessed. 🙂
That's a good job and great enovetion.it seams this skull is more old.teeths pair are distance.is it's colour golden? I think so many information hide in this.it should research by great scientists. thanks a lot for sharing
Hola amigo
Interesante el descubrimiento del chico.
Este homínido de acuerdo con la Comisión Internacional de Estratigrafía pertenece a la era del Pleistoceno.
Buen artículo.
Saludos y Gracias
Good to read to read your well researched post once again.
I used to read your Taung Child posts and hmmm they were well researched and worthwhile and I learnt a lot from it. I even spent some time researching more on that particular subject and I'm glad it enlarged my knowledge base.
It's good to bump into your post once more and I think I'll carefully and painstakingly read and research more about it and I'll also do well to hang around more.
Thanks for sharing this.
Happy Steeming
What's this head sir
It's an Australopithecus robustus skull :)
Looks pretty beautiful
Fantastic discovery. terrible skull. I became curious about the continuation of his research results.
Let's start the battle of scientists!