A jut-jawed, peg-toothed member of humans’ evolutionary family has chemically vetoed its 50-year-old nickname — Nutcracker Man.
Far from eating nuts, seeds and other hard foods seemingly suited to its viselike jaws, this now-extinct hominid mainly munched grasses and flowering plants called sedges, which include papyrus, says a team led by geochemist Thure Cerling of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.