Paranthropus dies out
The chewing specialists disappear after more than a million years, and only the toolmakers are left.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 140 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 100 thousand years
- Era
- Early Pleistocene, Quaternary
Paranthropus boisei survives to roughly 1.34 million years ago and robustus to about 1.2 million, then both lineages end. They had been successful for over a million years — longer than Homo sapiens has existed — so their extinction is not evidence of a failed design. Proposed causes include increased climatic variability outstripping a specialised diet, and competition from an increasingly capable Homo. Their disappearance leaves a single hominin lineage on Earth for the first time in millions of years.