Fossils from a new South African site show that some human ancestors ate fruits and leaves, as do most primates today. The finding challenges ideas of why and how the human lineage split from the ancestors of extant apes. See Letter p.90
References
Darwin, C. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (Murray, 1871).
Cerling, T. E. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 97, 241–247 (1992).
Henry, A. G. et al. Nature 487, 90–93 (2012).
Wood, B. & Leakey, M. Evol. Anthropol. 20, 264–292 (2011).
Sponheimer, M. et al. J. Hum. Evol. 48, 301–312 (2005).
Moore, J. in Topics in Primatology: Human Origins (eds Nishida, T. et al.) 99–118 (Univ. Tokyo Press, 1992).
Codron, D., Lee-Thorp, J. A., Sponheimer, M., de Ruiter, D. & Codron, J. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 129, 204–214 (2006).
Schoeninger, M. J., Moore, J. & Sept, J. M. Am. J. Primatol. 49, 297–314 (1999).
White, T. D. et al. Science 326, 75–86 (2009).
Pickering, R. et al. Science 333, 1421–1423 (2011).
Gould, S. J. in Hen's Teeth And Horse's Toes Ch. 28, 355–365 (Norton, 1983).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schoeninger, M. The ancestral dinner table. Nature 487, 42–43 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/487042a
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/487042a
- Springer Nature Limited
This article is cited by
-
Correction
Nature (2012)