New cave fossils reveal early human relative

A NEW fossil discovery from SwartKrans Cave has revealed that an early human relative Paranthropus robustus, which was much smaller than previously thought, making it highly vulnerable to predators. A team of international researchers from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University), including Travis Pickering, Matthew Caruana, Marine Cazenave, Ron Clarke, Jason Heaton, A.J. Heile, Kathleen Kuman, and Dominic Stratford, found that the fossils belonged to a single, young adult Paranthropus robustus. The study, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, not only confirms that the species walks upright like modern humans but also highlights its remarkable small size. According to Wits University, Paranthropus robustus lived in South Africa around two million years ago, alongside Homo ergaster, a direct a direct ancestor of…