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Turns out even ancient dudes loved their "man caves."
An international team of researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder revealed this week that the menfolk from two hominid species that lived more than a million years ago in South Africa preferred the walls of home to the promise of adventure elsewhere.
In fact, it was the women who braved the great unknown and roamed the area on their own -- possibly even in search of a mate.
This study gets us closer to understanding the social structure of ancient hominids since we now have a better idea about the dispersal patterns.
–Sandi Copeland
The key to unlocking the secret of their social lives was hidden in ancient dental records, according to the study published in the June 2 issue of the journal, Nature.
"Disembodied skulls and teeth are notoriously poor communicators, so the real difficulty with a study like this is finding new ways to make these old bones speak," said CU-Boulder anthropology professor and study co-author Matt Sponheimer.
Using a high tech method involving lasers, the team checked out 19 teeth from the two extinct species of human relatives that made camp in neighboring cave systems on the savannah. They measured ratios of an element found in rocks and soils that is absorbed by plants and animals.
"The strontium isotope ratios are a direct reflection of the foods these hominids ate, which in turn are a reflection of the local geology," said lead study author Sandi Copeland.
Using those results, they concluded that more than half the female teeth were from outside the neighborhood, while just 10 percent of the male teeth were from elsewhere -- solid evidence that these guys were homebodies at heart and likely were born, grew up and died in the same place.
Copeland says this pattern isn't too different from chimpanzees -- and coincidentally some groups of modern humans -- in which the women leave their own families for a bed in their husband's household. However, it's the opposite of most other primates -- where the females stay with their families and the males make their way out into the world.
"This study gets us closer to understanding the social structure of ancient hominids since we now have a better idea about the dispersal patterns," Copeland said.
Now if only I could figure out how to get my husband to emerge from his cave every once in awhile.
Email:jrogers@ksl.com
Top image: A skull of a Paranthropus robustus from Swartkrans Cave in South Africa. (Credit: Darryl de Ruiter)
