Our earliest ancestors might have been crackers - specialised crackers of tough nuts and seeds, that is. Australopithecines boasted mouths ideal for accessing such well-protected food, suggests a new calculation of the ancient, upright hominin's bite.
Australopithecus possessed jaws and teeth larger and more powerful than those of its ape ancestors, says David Strait, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Albany in New York, who led the study. "It's been thought that these unique facial features are adaptations for chewing or feeding."
Some researchers see the australopithecine mouth as sculpted for munching small, hard objects such as seeds. While others have argued that their bigger mouths merely allowed them to eat more food with each bite. However, the new results cast doubt on both explanations.
Rather than analyse microscopic cracks in tooth enamel or the chemical composition of bone, as others had done, Strait's team took an approach more common to mechanical engineering...
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