How the first Paranthropus was found
In 1938, a schoolboy, Gert Terblanche, discovered a partial skull of a fossil hominid with uncharacteristic features at Kromdraai, in the Cradle of Humankind. He handed the primitive palate and a molar tooth to Sterkfontein’s quarry manager, George Barlow, who regularly gave Dr Robert Broom specimens to examine. When the famous palaeontologist saw the fossil, he immediately set out to find Terblanche.
“I naturally went to the school, and found the boy with four of what are perhaps the most valuable teeth in the world in his trouser pocket,” Broom later said.
Terblanche led Broom to the Kromdraai site, where together they found part of the skull and jaw of the same specimen. This discovery led Broom to declare the fossils were evidence of a new hominid genus and species, Paranthropus robustus.Paranthropus had prominent cheekbones, a massive jaw and large teeth.
Later discoveries of Paranthropus at Swartkrans in the Cradle of Humankind and in East Africa showed the males had a bone ridge or “sagittal crest” on the top of their heads to which powerful muscles were attached.
These heavy-chewing adaptations led Broom and his colleague, John Robinson, to affirm that this hominid was in a separate genus to Australopithecus, which many palaeoanthropologists think is a more direct ancestor of modern humans.
Some palaeoanthropologists still debate whether Paranthropus is truly another genus of hominid or just a robust species of Australopithecus, but the trend in recent years has been to agree with Broom and keep it in a separate genus.