The teeth of australopithecines are similar to those of humans. The
molars are similar, although larger. They do not have the large
canine teeth of apes, and the jaw has the parabolic shape of human jaws,
rather than the rectangular shape of ape jaws.
Studying human and modern ape fossils in the 1950s, Le
Gros Clark came up with a list of eleven consistent differences between humans and
apes. Looking at Australopithecus africanus and A. robustus, the only
australopithecine species then known, he found that they were humanlike rather than
apelike in every characteristic (Johanson and Edey 1981).
Judged by the same criteria, A. afarensis
falls somewhere between humans and apes, and possibly closer to the apes.
This illustration is from "Humankind Emerging", edited by Bernard
Campbell.
