Stressed Skull Reveals Early Human Diet

In the image, bright colors correspond to high stresses and indicate that a bony pillar running alongside the opening of the nasal cavity acts as a strut that structurally reinforces the face against premolar loads.

Using state-of-the-art computer modeling and simulation technology, the same kind that engineers use to simulate how a car reacts to forces in a front-end collision, the researchers built a virtual model of an A. africanus skull and were able to see just how the jaw operated and what forces it could produce.