OUR early ancestors could crack seeds and nuts with their teeth.
David Strait of the University of Albany in New York used precise skull and teeth measurements to build a model of the bite of Australopithecus africanus, an upright hominin that flourished in southern Africa between 3.3 and 2.5 million years ago. The model suggests that our ancestor’s premolars – teeth just behind the canines – were strong enough to shatter the husks of nuts and seeds (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0808730106).
“Try sticking a walnut in your mouth and then biting on it. It’s not so easy,” says Strait. Nuts and seeds…
