Abstract
Fossils from a new South African site show that some human ancestors ate fruits and leaves, as do most primates today. The finding challenges ideas of why and how the human lineage split from the ancestors of extant apes. See Letter p.90 Discovered in 2008, Australopithecus sediba is an approximately two-million-year-old hominin fossil from South Africa, related to other Australopithecus and early Homo species. Using a combination of stable-isotope analysis, dental-microwear patterns and analysis of plant microfossils extracted from dental calculus from two fossilized individuals, it is shown here that A. sediba consumed a diet consisting mainly of tree leaves, fruits and bark, suggesting that they resided in a woodland environment. This contrasts with previously described diets of other early hominin species that suggested an open-savanna habitat.
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