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Nov 9, 2006 10:27 pm US/Mountain
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CU Researcher May Have Human Evolution Answers
by Shaun Boyd
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) ―
A breakthrough study by a
University of Colorado researcher may help answer one of the fundamental questions about human evolution.
Why are we still here while other similar species went extinct?
For years, scientists believed it was because our diet was more diverse but the answer may be more complex.
The answer may be found in the teeth of one of our earliest relatives named paranthropus.
"Perhaps not the most comely fellow around but very intriguing," said Matt Sponheimer, a CU anthropologist.
It's a story that dates back 2.5 million years when the matriarch of modern humans,
"Lucy," had twins: the genus homo, which are humans and the genus paranthropus.
For years, the two walked the earth side by side and then one day paranthropus went extinct.
Conventional wisdom was they were picky eaters. Humans have tiny teeth whereas paranthropist teeth are huge which led some to theorize they had a limited diet of nuts and berries that eventually dried up and lead to their demise.
"But of course there's always the question, how wise is conventional wisdom?" Sponheimer said.
He set out to answer that.
Using a sophisticated laser technique, he studied the chemical composition of teeth from a cave site in South Africa and found that what we eat is actually incorporated into our enamel.
"It's one of the few things people told me when I was growing up that turned out to be true, you are what you eat," Sponheimer said.
As it turns out, paranthropus dined on a diverse menu and likely didn't die off because of the diet.
"And this of course calls into question the reason we're here and they're not," Sponheimer said.
It's a mystery that will likely take many more years to unravel.
Professor Sponheimer said there are other possible explanations for why our early relatives went extinct including that we outsmarted them or outbred them.
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