Diet of Australopithecus afarensis from the Pliocene Hadar Formation, Ethiopia

Jonathan G. Wynn, Matt Sponheimer, William Kimbel, Zeresenay Alemseged, Kaye Reed, Zelalem K. Bedaso, Jessica N. Wilson

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

91 Scopus citations

Abstract

The enhanced dietary flexibility of early hominins to include consumption of C4/crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) foods (i.e., foods derived from grasses, sedges, and succulents common in tropical savannas and deserts) likely represents a significant ecological and behavioral distinction from both extant great apes and the last common ancestor that we shared with great apes. Here, we use stable carbon isotopic data from 20 samples of Australopithecus afarensis from Hadar and Dikika, Ethiopia (>3.4-2.9 Ma) to show that this species consumed a diet with significant C4/ CAM foods, differing from its putative ancestor Au. anamensis. Furthermore, there is no temporal trend in the amount of C4/CAM food consumption over the age of the samples analyzed, and the amount of C4/CAM food intake was highly variable, even within a single narrow stratigraphic interval. As such, Au. afarensis was a key participant in the C4/CAM dietary expansion by early australopiths of the middle Pliocene. The middle Pliocene expansion of the eastern African australopith diet to include savannabased foods represents a shift to use of plant food resources that were already abundant in hominin environments for at least 1 million y and sets the stage for dietary differentiation and niche specialization by subsequent hominin taxa.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)10495-10500
Number of pages6
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume110
Issue number26
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 25 2013

Keywords

  • Bioapatite
  • Human evolution
  • Paleodiet
  • Stable isotope
  • carbon-13

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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