Besides the minimally essential foodstuff available to sustain the
australopithecines, small amounts of additional energy were likely used both to gather food and to prepare it for consumption.
During the 1970s and 1980s, when anthropologists were bringing "woman the gatherer" into the evolutionary picture and when there were many discoveries in Africa of fossils from two to four million years old, the focus was on the early
australopithecine stage.
"Imagine your product featured in an authentic 'alternative' comic strip that is read by the most desirable demographics: educated young professionals; sophisticated internet users; upwardly mobile newspaper readers; and discerning
australopithecine enthusiasts," Bolling wrote in an open letter to "Advertisers, Marketers and Promoters of All Types."
From Africa the
Australopithecine crept, bending upright, squeaking out
Other papers consider taphonomic comparisons of
australopithecine skeletons from South Africa and homonids as taphonomic agents.
While that's still one theory, Brown now leans toward the more striking idea that Flores man represents a direct link to the much more ancient
australopithecines, a notion that raises all sorts of interesting speculation because
australopithecine fossils have never been found outside of Africa.
"Primate Models of
Australopithecine Sexual Dimorphism," in American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 45, 1976.
The group concluded that the fossils were those of a hominid because the upper canines are small and the dental enamel is thicker than in chimpanzees but thinner than in
Australopithecine.
tall, a three-and-a-half million year old example of an entirely new species of the
australopithecine genus, later officially named A.
But the picture has become more confused recently with the discovery of three new
australopithecine species in Africa and another, poorly understood, genus of early hominid called Ardipithecus.