Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, The George Washington University, 800 22nd St NW, Suite 6000, Washington, DC, 20052, USA.
Departamento de Antropología, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile; Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behavior (ICArEHB), Universidade Do Algarve, Faro, Portugal; Primate Models for Behavioural Evolution Lab, Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
J Hum Evol. 2020 Mar;140:102548. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2018.11.004. Epub 2019 Jan 11.
The Pliocene site of Kanapoi is key to our understanding of the environmental context of the earliest species of Australopithecus. Various approaches have been used to reconstruct the environments of this site, and here we contribute new data and analyses using mesowear and hypsodonty. The dental traits of 98 bovids, suids and rhinocerotids from Kanapoi were analyzed using these proxies. Results indicate that most of the animals analyzed had a relatively abrasive diet. Bovids in the assemblage incorporated more grass into their diet than do modern species of the same tribe or genus. Although Pliocene Kanapoi likely had complex environments, our analysis indicates that grassy habitats were a dominant component of the ecosystem, a conclusion that supports the results of previous investigations of the paleoecology of the site.
堪培利上新世遗址对于我们理解南方古猿最早物种的环境背景至关重要。已经采用了各种方法来重建该遗址的环境，在这里，我们使用中磨齿和高齿冠度来提供新的数据和分析。使用这些替代物分析了来自堪培利的 98 种牛科、猪科和犀科动物的牙齿特征。结果表明，分析的大多数动物的饮食都比较粗糙。与同一部落或属的现代物种相比，该组合中的牛科动物更多地将草纳入其饮食。尽管上新世的堪培利可能有复杂的环境，但我们的分析表明，草原栖息地是生态系统的主要组成部分，这一结论支持了先前对该遗址古生态学研究的结果。
