Australopithecines

H. habilis was short and had disproportionately long arms compared to modern humans; however, it had a less protruding face than the australopithecines from which it is thought to have descended.

Homo habilis had smaller molars and larger brains than the australopithecines, and made tools from stone and perhaps animal bones.

Paranthropus is associated with stone tools both in southern and eastern Africa, although there is considerable debate whether they were made and utilized by these robust australopithecines or contemporaneous Homo.

Pliocene mammals of North America Africa was dominated by hoofed animals, and primates continued their evolution, with australopithecines (some of the first hominins ) appearing in the late Pliocene.

The brain volume is just under 600 cm³; also a reduction in a protruding face is present compared to members of more primitive australopithecines.

These apes may have once been bipedal, but then lost this ability when they were forced back into an arboreal habitat, presumably by those australopithecines who eventually became us (see Homininae ).

The Zinj question ultimately became part of the Australopithecus/Paranthropus question (which only applied to the robust Australopithecines).