Paranthropus robustus
The southern African robust australopith, found in caves alongside early Homo.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 800 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 100 thousand years
- Era
- Early Pleistocene, Quaternary
Paranthropus robustus, first described by Robert Broom in 1938 from Kromdraai, is the South African member of the robust lineage — massive molars and chewing apparatus, but somewhat less extreme than boisei. It is found at Swartkrans and Drimolen in the same deposits as early Homo, showing the two lineages shared a landscape for hundreds of thousands of years. Bone tools from Swartkrans with polish consistent with digging into termite mounds may well be its work rather than Homo's.