ABSTRACT
Robert Broom, who had confirmed Dart’s analysis of the Taung child with discoveries of adult australopithecines at Sterkfontein, South Africa, happened upon a different type of early hominin at a nearby cave site. The first hominin fossils from Kromdraai, just a short walk from Sterkfontein, were found by a young schoolboy in 1938. Broom (1938) noted the particularly robust nature of the maxilla and mandible—strong, thick bones to support large molar teeth. Broom named a new genus and species, Paranthropus robustus, to accommodate this material. In the following years, more fossils came from Swartkrans (across the valley from Sterkfontein), confirming the remarkable facial architecture of these early hominins. The Krom-draai and Swartkrans fossils were similar in many respects to Australopithecus africanus in being relatively small-brained bipeds, and thus are often referred to the same genus. Australopithecus ( = Paranthropus) robustus was a lineage of facially robust australopithecines that eventually became extinct.
