Previously skeptical, an Ohio State University anthropologist now supports the idea that the minimal size differences between male and female pre-hominids suggest that they lived in a more cooperative and less competitive society.
The evidence centers on the extent of sexual dimorphism differences in size based on sex -- that existed among these early primates and what it suggests about the social structure of these creatures.
In a paper published in the August 5 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at Kent State University reported that remains of both male and female specimens of Australopithecus afarensis showed fewer differences based on size than most paleontologists had earlier expected.
After comparing these bones
with the near-complete
skeletons of the fossil "Lucy,"
the researchers argue that the
social structure of our earliest
ancestors compared more to
that of modern humans and
chimpanzees than it does to
gorillas and orangutans, as
Contact: Clark Spencer Larsen
Ohio State University