Interviewee: Chris Stringer. Human origins expert Chris Stringer talks about ancient hominids: the australopithecines. (DNAi Location: Applications> Human origins > Our family tree> Video > Apelike hominids that walked upright)

When we come on to this time period, we know quite a lot about Australopithecus afarensis, and we have a contemporaneous form called Kenyanthropus. So again even here, apparently two distinct forms. And this one is pretty well known from partial skeletons, and we can see that this creature, although it walked upright, was still in many respects quite apelike, and we imagine that its way of life was fundamentally apelike. As we move on, we still have this rather, if you like, apelike face, we're talking about, essentially, apes that walked upright, but some of them became quite specialized. And here we've got dietary adaptations where we have an enlargement of the molar and pre-molar teeth, probably to eat small, hard food objects, and these are the robust australopithicines. They seem to be a separate lineage that died out, somewhat over one million years ago.

chris stringer,molar teeth,one million years,partial skeletons,human origins,kenyanthropus,human evolution,location applications,australopithecines,dnai,hominids,physical features,interviewee,adaptations,apes,lineage,way of life,respects,time period,family tree

Theora Video   MPEG 4 Video