Enamel proteins reveal biological sex and genetic variability in southern African <i>Paranthropus</i>
<i>Paranthropus robustus</i> is a morphologically well-documented Early Pleistocene hominin species from southern Africa with no genetic evidence reported so far. In this work, we describe the mass spectrometric sequencing of enamel peptides from four ~2 million-year-old dental specimens attributed morphologically to <i>P. robustus</i> from the site of Swartkrans in South Africa. The identification of AMELY-specific peptides enabled us to assign two specimens to male individuals, whereas semiquantitative mass spectrometric data analysis attributed the other two to females. A single amino acid polymorphism and the enamel-dentine junction shape variation indicated potential subgroups present within southern African <i>Paranthropus</i>. This study demonstrates how palaeoproteomics can help distinguish sexual dimorphism from other sources of variation in African Early Pleistocene hominins.
Authors
- Esther Lizano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3304-9807)
- Lauren Schroeder (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6406-8096)
- Patrick Rüther (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4461-9828)
- Fredrick K. Manthi
- Robyn Pickering (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2663-7574)
- Frido Welker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4846-6104)
- Caroline Tokarski (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7296-3330)
- Charles M. Musiba (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4297-5178)
- Jazmín Ramos‐Madrigal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1661-7991)
- Kirsty Penkman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6226-9799)
- Nomawethu Hlazo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5495-1790)
- Jüergen Cox (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8597-205X)
- Mirriam Tawane (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5265-7846)
- Catherine Mollereau (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1543-5624)
- Yonatan Sahle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1098-1685)
- Catherine Gilbert (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3382-7149)
- Ioannis Patramanis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1852-2451)
- Johanna Krueger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2685-718X)
- Alberto J. Taurozzi
- Marc R. Dickinson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0465-1612)
- Jesper Velgaard Olsen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4747-4938)
- Liam Bell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7791-7472)
- Job Munube Kibii (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4113-0592)
- Bernhard Zipfel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4251-884X)
- Enrico Cappellini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7885-7811)
- Gaudry Troché (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0404-4030)
- Clément Zanolli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5617-1613)
- R. Ackermann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8757-6878)
- Lukas F. K. Kuderna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9992-9295)
- Meaghan Mackie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0763-7592)
- Pelagia Kyriakidou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1139-715X)
- Tomàs Marquès‐Bonet (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5597-3075)
- Fernando Racimo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5025-2607)
- Claire Koenig (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7327-2723)
- Jonathan Michael Blackburn (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8988-9595)
- Palesa P. Madupe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5514-5221)
- Dipuo Kgotleng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2160-7090)
- Michelle DuPlessis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7905-6845)
Institutions
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ES)
- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ES)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ES)
- Université de Bordeaux (FR)
- University of Cape Town (ZA)
- Universitat Pompeu Fabra (ES)
- Duke University (US)
- University of Toronto (CA)
- University of the Witwatersrand (ZA)
- University of Johannesburg (ZA)
- Novo Nordisk Foundation (DK)
- National Heritage Council (ZA)
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale (FR)
- De la Préhistoire à l'Actuel : Culture, Environnement et Anthropologie (FR)
- African Organisation for Research and Training in Cancer (ZA)
- Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (ES)
- Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico (ES)
- Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ES)
- Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (DE)
- National Museums of Kenya (KE)
- University of York (GB)
- National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science
- Published
- 2025-05-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adt9539
- Citations
- 12
- Primary Topic
- Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 136.15