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The Alpha Taxonomy of Australopithecus africanus

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The Paleobiology of Australopithecus

Part of the book series: Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology ((VERT))

Abstract

The identification of species in the fossil record has long vexed paleontologists because of its inherent difficulty, and it has long preoccupied them because of its fundamental significance. Australopithecus africanus exemplifies this difficulty and importance. This species, as commonly defined, is viewed by some as having played a role in the evolution of the genus Homo, while others consider it to have been uniquely related to Paranthropus. A third opinion places it near the base of the evolutionary divergence of the “robust” australopith and human lineages. Various analyses find A. africanus to be phylogenetically unstable, and this is almost certainly owing to its craniodental variability. This has led to questions concerning the taxonomic homogeneity of the assemblages from Taung, Sterkfontein, and Makapansgat that comprise its hypodigm. Initial discoveries at these sites were attributed to different species and possibly genera, but subsequent studies suggested that these fossils represent a single, albeit variable taxon. This paradigm has become current conventional paleoanthropological wisdom, but observations about the degree and pattern of variability evinced by these fossils have raised anew the possibility that the A. africanus hypodigm is taxonomically heterogeneous. Various workers have proposed that at least some of these fossils belong to a different taxon, but there is notable lack of agreement over the manner in which they should be sorted. Morphometric studies tend to find little, if any, support for taxonomic heterogeneity, but they may not have directly addressed those features that have been suggested to differ. Novel innovative technological and quantitative approaches are required to adequately address the possible taxonomic heterogeneity of the A. africanus hypodigm.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Broom (1946) initially regarded TM 1511 as being not improbably a young male, but following the discovery of an “excellent upper canine of a male,” Broom and Robinson (1950) came to view TM 1511 as female because of the size of its canine alveolus. However, this “excellent upper canine” (Sts 3) of Broom and Robinson (1950: Fig. 14), was later identified by Robinson (1956) as a mandibular tooth.

  2. 2.

    This must be a typographical error. In later publications, Clarke (1988a, b, 1994a, 2008) clearly regards A. africanus as having smaller teeth than the “second species.”

  3. 3.

    Schwartz and Tattersall (2005) recognize a number of Makapansgat fossils as conforming to their “TM 1517 facial and upper dental morph.” Although they do not explicitly recognize any Sterkfontein fossil as a member of this group, they inadvertently do so in their discussion of the hominin remains from Kromdraai (Schwartz and Tattersall 2005: 167–168), where they mistakenly identify TM 1512 as coming from that site.

  4. 4.

    The spelling of the name of this cavern varies. It was initially called the “Terror Chamber” or “Terror Cave” by M. Justin Wilkinson, and although this name was used by him in passing, he more formally referred to it as Jakovec Cavern (Wilkinson 1973; see also Wilkinson 1983, 1985). This spelling has been used by Pickering and Kramers (2010) and Herries et al. (2010), whereas Jacovec is the spelling employed by most others (e.g., Partridge and Watt 1991; Kibii 2001, 2007; Martini et al. 2003; Partridge et al. 2003; Clarke 2006).

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Acknowledgments

I thank John Fleagle and Kaye Reed for the invitation to contribute this review to the present volume on Australopithecus. I am grateful to P. V. Tobias, A. R. Hughes, and R. J. Clarke for the opportunity to work on the fossils from Taung, Sterkfontein, and Makapansgat, and for many hours of enjoyable and fruitful discussion. I thank Kieran McNulty, Karen Baab, John Fleagle, Kaye Reed, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on the manuscript. The illustrations were expertly executed by Luci Betti-Nash; I am sincerely grateful for the time and talent that she has devoted to them.

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  1. Departments of Anthropology and Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-4364, USA

    Frederick E. Grine

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  1. Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

    Kaye E. Reed

  2. Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University Medical Center, Stony Brook, New York, USA

    John G. Fleagle

  3. Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA

    Richard E. Leakey

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Grine, F.E. (2013). The Alpha Taxonomy of Australopithecus africanus . In: Reed, K., Fleagle, J., Leakey, R. (eds) The Paleobiology of Australopithecus. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5919-0_6

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