Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 109, Issue 50, Pages 20369-20372Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1204209109
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- University of Bradford
- University of Oxford
- University of Poitiers
- Sciences Fondamentales et Appliquees-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut de Paleoprimatologie, Paleontologie Humaine: Evolution et Paleoenvironnements, Unite Mixte de Recherche [7262]
- Universite et Centre National d'Appui a la Recherche, N'Djamena, Chad, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres (Commission des Fouilles Paris and Service de Cooperation et d'Action Culturelle Ambassade de France a N'Djamena)
- CNRS/Institut Ecologie et Environnement [ANR-09-BLAN-0238]
- National Science Foundation (Revealing Hominids Origins Initiative)
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Foods derived from C-4 plants were important in the dietary ecology of early Pleistocene hominins in southern and eastern Africa, but the origins and geographic variability of this relationship remain unknown. Carbon isotope data show that Australopithecus bahrelghazali individuals from Koro Toro in Chad are significantly enriched in C-13, indicating a dependence on C-4 resources. As these sites are over 3 million years in age, the results extend the pattern of C-4 dependence seen in Paranthropus boisei in East Africa by more than 1.5 million years. The Koro Toro hominin fossils were found in argillaceous sandstone levels along with abundant grazing and aquatic faunal elements that, in combination, indicate the presence of open to wooded grasslands and stream channels associated with a greatly enlarged Lake Chad. In such an environment, the most abundant C-4 plant resources available to A. bahrelghazali were grasses and sedges, neither of which is usually considered as standard great ape fare. The results suggest an early and fundamental shift in hominin dietary ecology that facilitated the exploitation of new habitats.
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