A Comparison of Two Species : The Trabecular Micro-architecture of the Australopithecus sediba and Paranthropus robustus mandible

Sammanfattning

The study of different hominin species has been an area of research that has interested palaeoanthropologists since the early 20th century. The purpose of this essay was to investigate whether there was a significant degree of variation in the trabecular architecture in mandibles belonging to different hominin species. Australopithecus sediba and Paranthropus robustus were two species of hominin that were contemporaneous to one another in southern Africa during the Plio-Pleistocene, and these two species were examined for this study. The study used a theoretical framework built around the Theory of Evolution as a foundation, on the premise that species evolve and develop adaptations. These adaptations, in turn, may have created a degree of variation in the trabecular architecture of the mandible. Utilising micro-CT data gathered from the U.W. 88-8, SK12b, and SK23 fossils, a descriptive statistical analysis and one-way ANOVA test were performed. The results of this analysis showed that there was no significant degree of variation in the mandibles of the two species. The trabecular architecture could not be used to differentiate between the two species.