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DOI | 10.1038/s41586-019-0981-1 |
Elemental signatures of Australopithecus africanus teeth reveal seasonal dietary stress | |
Joannes-Boyau, Renaud1; Adams, Justin W.2,3; Austin, Christine4; Arora, Manish4; Moffat, Ian5,6; Herries, Andy I. R.3,7; Tonge, Matthew P.1; Benazzi, Stefano8,9; Evans, Alistair R.10,11; Kullmer, Ottmar12,13,14; Wroe, Stephen15; Dosseto, Anthony16; Fiorenza, Luca2,17 | |
2019-02-27 | |
发表期刊 | NATURE |
ISSN | 0028-0836 |
EISSN | 1476-4687 |
出版年 | 2019 |
卷号 | 572期号:7767页码:112-+ |
文章类型 | Article |
语种 | 英语 |
国家 | Australia; South Africa; USA; England; Italy; Germany |
英文摘要 | Reconstructing the detailed dietary behaviour of extinct hominins is challenging(1)-particularly for a species such as Australopithecus africanus, which has a highly variable dental morphology that suggests a broad diet(2,3). The dietary responses of extinct hominins to seasonal fluctuations in food availability are poorly understood, and nursing behaviours even less so; most of the direct information currently available has been obtained from high-resolution trace-element geochemical analysis of Homo sapiens (both modern and fossil), Homo neanderthalensis(4) and living apes(5). Here we apply high-resolution trace-element analysis to two A. africanus specimens from Sterkfontein Member 4 (South Africa), dated to 2.6-2.1 million years ago. Elemental signals indicate that A. africanus infants predominantly consumed breast milk for the first year after birth. A cyclical elemental pattern observed following the nursing sequence-comparable to the seasonal dietary signal that is seen in contemporary wild primates and other mammals-indicates irregular food availability. These results are supported by isotopic evidence for a geographical range that was dominated by nutritionally depauperate areas. Cyclical accumulation of lithium in A. africanus teeth also corroborates the idea that their range was characterized by fluctuating resources, and that they possessed physiological adaptations to this instability. This study provides insights into the dietary cycles and ecological behaviours of A. africanus in response to food availability, including the potential cyclical resurgence of milk intake during times of nutritional challenge (as observed in modern wild orangutans(5)). The geochemical findings for these teeth reinforce the unique place of A. africanus in the fossil record, and indicate dietary stress in specimens that date to shortly before the extinction of Australopithecus in South Africa about two million years ago. |
领域 | 地球科学 ; 气候变化 ; 资源环境 |
收录类别 | SCI-E ; SSCI |
WOS记录号 | WOS:000478017900045 |
WOS关键词 | BORNEAN ORANGUTANS ; LANDSCAPE USE ; EVOLUTION ; HOMINID ; LITHIUM |
WOS类目 | Multidisciplinary Sciences |
WOS研究方向 | Science & Technology - Other Topics |
URL | 查看原文 |
引用统计 | |
文献类型 | 期刊论文 |
条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/203036 |
专题 | 地球科学 资源环境科学 气候变化 |
作者单位 | 1.Southern Cross Univ, Geoarchaeol & Archaeometry Res Grp, Southern Cross GeoSci, Lismore, NSW, Australia; 2.Monash Univ, Biomed Discovery Inst, Dept Anat & Dev Biol, Melbourne, Vic, Australia; 3.Univ Johannesburg, Palaeores Inst, Johannesburg, South Africa; 4.Icahn Sch Med Mt Sinai, Dept Environm Med & Publ Hlth, New York, NY 10029 USA; 5.Flinders Univ S Australia, Coll Humanities Arts & Social Sci, Archaeol, Adelaide, SA, Australia; 6.Univ Cambridge, McDonald Inst Archaeol Res, Cambridge, England; 7.La Trobe Univ, Dept Archaeol & Hist, Palaeoscience Lab, Melbourne, Vic, Australia; 8.Univ Bologna, Dept Cultural Heritage, Ravenna, Italy; 9.Max Planck Inst Evolutionary Anthropol, Dept Human Evolut, Leipzig, Germany; 10.Monash Univ, Sch Biol Sci, Melbourne, Vic, Australia; 11.Museums Victoria, Geosci, Melbourne, Vic, Australia; 12.Senckenberg Res Inst, Dept Paleoanthropol, Frankfurt, Germany; 13.Nat Hist Museum Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany; 14.Goethe Univ Frankfurt, Inst Ecol Evolut & Divers, Dept Paleobiol & Environm, Frankfurt, Germany; 15.Univ New England, Sch Environm & Rural Sci, Funct Evolut & Anat Res Lab, Armidale, NSW, Australia; 16.Univ Wollongong, Sch Earth Atmospher & Life Sci, Wollongong Isotope Geochronol Lab, Wollongong, NSW, Australia; 17.Univ New England, Earth Sci, Armidale, NSW, Australia |
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Joannes-Boyau, Renaud,Adams, Justin W.,Austin, Christine,et al. Elemental signatures of Australopithecus africanus teeth reveal seasonal dietary stress[J]. NATURE,2019,572(7767):112-+. |
APA | Joannes-Boyau, Renaud.,Adams, Justin W..,Austin, Christine.,Arora, Manish.,Moffat, Ian.,...&Fiorenza, Luca.(2019).Elemental signatures of Australopithecus africanus teeth reveal seasonal dietary stress.NATURE,572(7767),112-+. |
MLA | Joannes-Boyau, Renaud,et al."Elemental signatures of Australopithecus africanus teeth reveal seasonal dietary stress".NATURE 572.7767(2019):112-+. |
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