Gaining a better understanding of the habitat, movements, and lifestyle of Paranthropus robustus, a Pleistocene hominin—an evolutionary relative of humans—discovered in the Gauteng region of South Africa: this is the focus of scientific work published in Nature Ecology and Evolution by Vincent Balter, CNRS research director and member of the LGL-TPE laboratory at ENS de Lyon, Andrew Sillen, paleoanthropologist in New York, and Christopher Dean, paleoanthropologist in London.

Specifically, these researchers studied fossil teeth found in South Africa at the Swartkrans and Kromdraai sites. They analyzed certain chemical elements (such as strontium, calcium, and barium) present in these teeth to understand how Paranthropus robustus lived. This enabled them to reconstruct 28 geochemical chronologies, providing information about its behavior and habits.

The researchers discovered that these relatives of humans lived in both forests and grasslands, without limiting themselves to a single type of environment, and that the territory used by these individuals was quite large, comparable to that of modern hunter-gatherers. They also found that P. robustus did not necessarily follow the chimpanzee model (sedentary males, mobile females), but exhibited varied behaviors.

The analyses also revealed cycles, possibly linked to the seasons or phases of the moon, and demonstrated that P. robustus was able to adapt to its environment and resources, calling into question the possibility that it may have disappeared due to an overly limited diet.

It is important to note that the approach used by this group of researchers, combining geochemistry, dental histology, and isotopic mapping, is highly innovative and could serve as a model for studying other hominin genera, such as early Homo or the common ancestor, Australopithecus.

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Reference

Geochemical chronologies in Paranthropus robustus teeth inform habitat and life histories. Nat. Ecol. Evol. (2025). DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02798-1