Small pieces of tooth enamel from deep in a South African cave have begun to reveal secrets held for 2 million years by a distant human relative, a new study finds..
Archaeologists recovered teeth from four members of the species Paranthropus robustus, a two-legged human relative who lived between 1.8 million and 1.2 million years ago, from Swartkrans, a fossil-bearing cave in Africa's Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site. Using cutting-edge techniques that can analyze fossils’ amino acid sequences, the researchers were able to determine the sex of the individuals and discovered surprising genetic variation that could point to the existence of a previously unknown species.
