First Partial Skeleton of a 1.34-Million-Year-Old Paranthropus boisei from Bed II, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: Recent excavations in Level 4 at BK (Bed II, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania) have yielded nine hominin teeth, a distal humerus fragment, a proximal radius with much of its shaft, a femur shaft, and a tibia shaft fragment (cataloged collectively as OH 80). Those elements identified more specifically than to simply Hominidae gen. et sp. indet are attributed to Paranthropus boisei. Before this study, incontrovertible P. boisei partial skeletons, for which postcranial remains occurred in association with taxonomically diagnostic craniodental remains, were unknown. Thus, OH 80 stands as the first unambiguous, dentally associated Paranthropus partial skeleton from East Africa. The morphology and size of its constituent parts suggest that the fossils derived from an extremely robust individual who, at 1.338±0.024 Ma (1 sigma), represents one of the most recent occurrences of Paranthropus before its extinction in East Africa.
Source: PLoS ONE
Authors: Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, Travis Rayne Pickering, Enrique Baquedano, Audax Mabulla, Darren F. Mark, Charles Musiba, Henry T. Bunn, David Uribelarrea, Victoria Smith, Fernando Diez-Martin, Alfredo Pérez-González, Policarpo Sánchez, Manuel Santonja, Doris Barboni, Agness Gidna, Gail Ashley, José Yravedra, Jason L. Heaton, Maria Carmen Arriaza
Institutions: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Museo de San Isidro, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of the Witwatersrand, Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, University of Dar es Salaam, Natural Environment Research Council, Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, University of Colorado Denver, University of Oxford, Universidad de Valladolid, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, Aix-Marseille Université, Centre de Recherche et d’Enseignement de Géosciences de l’Environnement, National Museum of Tanzania, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Birmingham–Southern College
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,382
OpenAlex ID: W2149200410