Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences Researcher Discovers Early Humans Used Nuts to Survive

Monday, February 09, 2009

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Feb. 9, 2009) – New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has led to additional insights into how feeding and dietary adaptations may have shaped the evolution of the earliest humans.

Barth Wright, Ph.D., assistant professor of anatomy at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, was part of an international team of researchers from nine academic institutions that studied how the facial skeletons of human ancestors and some primates adapted to withstand the forces imposed by chewing.

Their findings revealed that a two million year-old early human relative likely ingested large nuts and seeds as “foods of last resort.” The article, “The Feeding Biomechanics and Dietary Ecology of Australopithecus Africanus,” appears in the February 2009 issue of Proceedings.

“It is an honor to be part of such a wonderful team of researchers and to play a role in the dissemination of findings that are reshaping the way we think about human and non-human primate adaptation and evolution,” Dr. Wright said.

The team found that Australopithecus africanus appears to have used their enlarged premolars and structurally reinforced face to crack open and ingest large hard nuts and seeds. Such nuts and seeds may have been critical “fallback” resources that were used when preferred and less mechanically demanding foods were unavailable.

To conduct their research, the team utilized advanced experimental, comparative and imaging techniques along with finite element analysis, an engineering method used to examine how objects of complex geometry respond to loads.

The research was made possible through grants from the National Science Foundation and the European Union.

Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences is a fully accredited, private university, with a College of Biosciences and a College of Osteopathic Medicine. Founded in 1916, its College of Osteopathic Medicine is the oldest medical school in Kansas City, Mo., and the largest in the state.