article_snippet: They had brains no larger than a chimpanzee's .
article_snippet: - Paranthropus, lived in woods and had massive jaws for chewing .
article_snippet: The researchers, whose work on the fossil is published in the journal Science, say the fossil could be a key missing link between the Homo lineage and a more primitive and ape-like rival branch of the hominin evolutionary tree called Australopithecus.
article_snippet: Details of the Australopithecus are best known from a fossil named ‘Lucy’, dating back 3.2 million years, which was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974.
article_snippet: Other fossils of antelope, prehistoric elephants and hippos discovered alongside The fossilised jawbone suggest that this early Homo species lived in open grassland and shrub habitats.
article_snippet: Australopithecus, by contrast, was thought to inhabit far wetter environments and this may have contributed to The researchers eventual demise.
article_snippet: Finds like Kenyanthropus (a 3.5 million year old ape-like species) have made it harder to understand the relationship between the Australopithecines and us - in short
article_snippet: The new fossil may well be a member of our genus, an australopithecine or an hitherto unknown genus.'