Paranthropus boisei: Hominin #6 - 1/88 Limited Edition

Format: 2160 x 2160 px - MP4 Looping video - 150 dpi

This Hominin bust by the Smithsonian paleoartist John Gurche is built with clay over a cast or 3D print of an ancient skull, from which a silicone mold is taken and the face painted into the mold. Acrylic eyes, and bear or human hair implanted manually and individually.

Materials: clay, casting, 3D printing, silicone, acrylic, paint, bear hair, human hair.

Medium: digital photography, post-production coloring, animation.

This species, which coincided with Homo habilis in east Africa 2.3 to 1.2 million years ago, is a strange relative, not a direct ancestor but more of an evolutionary cousin, on a branch of the human tree that eventually vanished from the earth, with no descendants. It had a small braincase and almost no forehead, massive jaws holding huge molars (four times the surface area of ours), a slightly concave face and flaring cheekbones.

In males, the chewing muscles extended all the way up the side of the head and met at the top, where they were anchored by a crest. Its nickname, “Nutcracker man,” explains the possible reason for this extreme anatomy. Eventually, natural selection did not seem to favor its narrow adaptive path. Since its existence was focused on the search for vegetable foods, artist John Gurche gave it an expression of “bovine contentment.”

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