Members of the hominin genus Paranthropus described first in the 1930's by Robert Broom. Since the 1960's, most paleoanthropologists have not classified them as a separate genus but, rather, as members of the genus Australopithecus. From this perspective, the paranthropoids were the robust australopithecines. They lived during the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene geological Epochs in Africa (i. E. , ca. 2. 5-1. 4 million years ago). .