Paranthropus robustus was originally discovered in Southern Africa

Southern Africa

Southern Africa is the southernmost region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. Within the region are numerous territories, including the Republic of South Africa ; nowadays, the simpler term South Africa is generally reserved for the country in English.-UN...

 in 1938. The development of P. robustus, namely in cranial features, seemed to be aimed in the direction of a "heavy-chewing complex". Because of the definitive traits that are associated with this robust line of australopithecine

Australopithecine

The term australopithecine refers generally to any species in the related genera Australopithecus or Paranthropus. These species occurred in the Plio-Pleistocene era, and were bipedal and dentally similar to humans, but with a brain size not much larger than modern apes, lacking the...

, anthropologist Robert Broom

Robert Broom

Professor Robert Broom was a Scottish South African doctor and paleontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow...

 erected the genus Paranthropus

Paranthropus

The robust australopithecines, members of the extinct hominin genus Paranthropus , were bipedal hominids that probably descended from the gracile australopithecine hominids...

and placed this species into it.

Paranthropus robustus (considered for a time by the scientific community as Australopithecus robustus) is generally dated to have lived between 2.0 and 1.2 million years ago.