Early ancestors may have lived in 'harem' societies: 30-11-2007
Some early human ancestors may have lived in "harem" societies like gorillas and orang-utans, a new study has suggested.
In these societies a single male will be dominant and protect a large group of females.
The new claims are based on the fossils from the human relative paranthropus robustus and lived in Africa about 1.2 million to two million years ago, according to reports from National Geographic.
Male orang-utans gain weight as they grow older and get much bigger than females and the fossils found at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site in South Africa are predominantly leopards.
Most of the remains are male which suggests that males had a more dangerous lifestyle and the paranthropus robustus is closely related to early humans.
Charles Lockwood, an anthologist at the University College London, studied the fossils and put the theory together.
He said: "They most likely left their birth groups at about the time they reached maturity, and it was a long time before they were mature enough to attract females and establish a new group.
"The key inference is that there were stable groups of females that would have allowed males to pursue this [harem] strategy," he added.
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