1
|
Pantoja-Pérez A, Arsuaga JL. The Cranium I: Neurocranium. Anat Rec (Hoboken) 2024; 307:2278-2324. [PMID: 38454744 DOI: 10.1002/ar.25413] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/06/2023] [Revised: 01/30/2024] [Accepted: 02/07/2024] [Indexed: 03/09/2024]
Abstract
The Sima de los Huesos (SH) site has provided a significant collection of hominin remains, including numerous cranial fragments, which have contributed to our understanding of the MP human population. The taxonomic classification of the SH hominins remains a topic of debate, with some studies suggesting a close relationship to Neandertals based on nuclear DNA analysis. The cranial morphology of the SH specimens exhibits a mix of Neandertal-like features and primitive traits observed in earlier Homo populations, providing insights into the evolutionary pattern of the Neanderthal lineage. This study focuses on the neurocranial traits of the SH population and describes three previously undescribed cranial individuals. The SH cranial collection now comprises 20 nearly complete crania, representing approximately two-thirds of the estimated population size. The analysis of the SH population reveals variations in robustness, frontal torus development, sagittal keeling, and occipital torus morphology, which may be related to sexual dimorphism and ontogenetic factors. The suprainiac region exhibits notable ontogenetic changes, while suture obliteration patterns do not strictly correlate with dental age. Metric measurements, particularly cranial breadths, highlight significant intrapopulation variation within the SH sample. Compared with other Middle Pleistocene (MP) hominins, the SH cranial vault displays archaic characteristics but differs from Homo erectus and Neandertals. The SH individuals have relatively short and tall cranial vaults, distinguishing them from other MP fossils. These findings contribute to our understanding of the MP human populations and their evolutionary trajectories.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Ana Pantoja-Pérez
- Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre Evolución Humana-CENIEH, Burgos, Spain
- Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolución y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain
| | - Juan-Luis Arsuaga
- Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolución y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain
- Departamento de Geodinámica, Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Facultad Ciencias Geológicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Rodríguez L, García-González R, Arsuaga JL, Carretero JM. Exploring the morphology of adult tibia and fibula from Sima de los Huesos site in sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain. Anat Rec (Hoboken) 2024; 307:2606-2634. [PMID: 37792425 DOI: 10.1002/ar.25336] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2023] [Revised: 09/19/2023] [Accepted: 09/19/2023] [Indexed: 10/05/2023]
Abstract
The analysis of the locomotor anatomy of Late Pleistocene Homo has largely focused on changes in proximal femur and pelvic morphologies, with much attention centered on the emergence of modern humans. Although much of the focus has been on changes in the proximal femur, some research has also been conducted on tibiae and, to a lesser extent, fibulae. With this in mind, we present one of the largest samples of the same population of human tibiae and fibulae from the Middle Pleistocene to determine their main characteristic traits and establish similarities and differences, primarily with those of Neanderthals and modern humans, but also with other Middle Pleistocene specimens in the fossil record. Through this study, we established that the Middle Pleistocene population from the Sima de los Huesos (Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain) had lower leg long bones similar to those of Neanderthals, although there were some important differences, such as bone length, which this fossil individuals resembled those of modern humans and not to Neanderthals. This fact is related to the crural index and leg length, even though we do not have any true association between femora and tibiae yet, it has implications for establishing locomotor efficiency and climate adaptation.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Laura Rodríguez
- Area de Antropología Física. Departamento de Biodiversidad y Gestión Ambiental, Universidad de León. Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas y Ambientales. Campus De Vegazana, León, España
- Laboratorio de Evolución Humana, Universidad de Burgos, Burgos, España
| | | | - Juan Luis Arsuaga
- Departamento de Geodinámica, Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- Centro UCM-ISCIII de Investigación sobre Evolución y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain
| | - José-Miguel Carretero
- Laboratorio de Evolución Humana, Universidad de Burgos, Burgos, España
- Centro UCM-ISCIII de Investigación sobre Evolución y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain
- Unidad Asociada de I+D+i al CSIC Vidrio y Materiales del Patrimonio Cultural (VIMPAC), Universidad de Burgos, Burgos, España
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
van Holstein LA, Foley RA. Diversity-dependent speciation and extinction in hominins. Nat Ecol Evol 2024; 8:1180-1190. [PMID: 38632435 PMCID: PMC11166571 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02390-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2022] [Accepted: 03/08/2024] [Indexed: 04/19/2024]
Abstract
The search for drivers of hominin speciation and extinction has tended to focus on the impact of climate change. Far less attention has been paid to the role of interspecific competition. However, research across vertebrates more broadly has shown that both processes are often correlated with species diversity, suggesting an important role for interspecific competition. Here we ask whether hominin speciation and extinction conform to the expected patterns of negative and positive diversity dependence, respectively. We estimate speciation and extinction rates from fossil occurrence data with preservation variability priors in a validated Bayesian framework and test whether these rates are correlated with species diversity. We supplement these analyses with calculations of speciation rate across a phylogeny, again testing whether these are correlated with diversity. Our results are consistent with clade-wide diversity limits that governed speciation in hominins overall but that were not quite reached by the Australopithecus and Paranthropus subclade before its extinction. Extinction was not correlated with species diversity within the Australopithecus and Paranthropus subclade or within hominins overall; this is concordant with climate playing a greater part in hominin extinction than speciation. By contrast, Homo is characterized by positively diversity-dependent speciation and negatively diversity-dependent extinction-both exceedingly rare patterns across all forms of life. The genus Homo expands the set of reported associations between diversity and macroevolution in vertebrates, underscoring that the relationship between diversity and macroevolution is complex. These results indicate an important, previously underappreciated and comparatively unusual role of biotic interactions in Homo macroevolution, and speciation in particular. The unusual and unexpected patterns of diversity dependence in Homo speciation and extinction may be a consequence of repeated Homo range expansions driven by interspecific competition and made possible by recurrent innovations in ecological strategies. Exploring how hominin macroevolution fits into the general vertebrate macroevolutionary landscape has the potential to offer new perspectives on longstanding questions in vertebrate evolution and shed new light on evolutionary processes within our own lineage.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Laura A van Holstein
- Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
| | - Robert A Foley
- Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Garba R, Usyk V, Ylä-Mella L, Kameník J, Stübner K, Lachner J, Rugel G, Veselovský F, Gerasimenko N, Herries AIR, Kučera J, Knudsen MF, Jansen JD. East-to-west human dispersal into Europe 1.4 million years ago. Nature 2024; 627:805-810. [PMID: 38448591 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07151-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2023] [Accepted: 02/01/2024] [Indexed: 03/08/2024]
Abstract
Stone tools stratified in alluvium and loess at Korolevo, western Ukraine, have been studied by several research groups1-3 since the discovery of the site in the 1970s. Although Korolevo's importance to the European Palaeolithic is widely acknowledged, age constraints on the lowermost lithic artefacts have yet to be determined conclusively. Here, using two methods of burial dating with cosmogenic nuclides4,5, we report ages of 1.42 ± 0.10 million years and 1.42 ± 0.28 million years for the sedimentary unit that contains Mode-1-type lithic artefacts. Korolevo represents, to our knowledge, the earliest securely dated hominin presence in Europe, and bridges the spatial and temporal gap between the Caucasus (around 1.85-1.78 million years ago)6 and southwestern Europe (around 1.2-1.1 million years ago)7,8. Our findings advance the hypothesis that Europe was colonized from the east, and our analysis of habitat suitability9 suggests that early hominins exploited warm interglacial periods to disperse into higher latitudes and relatively continental sites-such as Korolevo-well before the Middle Pleistocene Transition.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- R Garba
- Nuclear Physics Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Řež, Czechia.
- Institute of Archaeology Prague, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia.
| | - V Usyk
- Institute of Archaeology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine
- Institute of Archaeology Brno, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia
| | - L Ylä-Mella
- GFÚ Institute of Geophysics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia
- Department of Physical Geography and Geoecology, Charles University, Prague, Czechia
| | - J Kameník
- Nuclear Physics Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Řež, Czechia
| | - K Stübner
- Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Dresden, Germany
| | - J Lachner
- Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Dresden, Germany
| | - G Rugel
- Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Dresden, Germany
| | | | - N Gerasimenko
- Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine
| | - A I R Herries
- Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - J Kučera
- Nuclear Physics Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Řež, Czechia
| | - M F Knudsen
- Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
| | - J D Jansen
- GFÚ Institute of Geophysics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia.
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Piszczek L, Kaczanowska J, Haubensak W. Towards correlative archaeology of the human mind. Biol Chem 2024; 405:5-12. [PMID: 37819768 PMCID: PMC10687516 DOI: 10.1515/hsz-2023-0199] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2023] [Accepted: 09/20/2023] [Indexed: 10/13/2023]
Abstract
Retracing human cognitive origins started out at the systems level with the top-down interpretation of archaeological records spanning from man-made artifacts to endocasts of ancient skulls. With emerging evolutionary genetics and organoid technologies, it is now possible to deconstruct evolutionary processes on a molecular/cellular level from the bottom-up by functionally testing archaic alleles in experimental models. The current challenge is to complement these approaches with novel strategies that allow a holistic reconstruction of evolutionary patterns across human cognitive domains. We argue that computational neuroarcheology can provide such a critical mesoscale framework at the brain network-level, linking molecular/cellular (bottom-up) to systems (top-down) level data for the correlative archeology of the human mind.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Lukasz Piszczek
- Department of Neuronal Cell Biology, Center for Brain Research, Medical University of Vienna, A-Vienna, Austria
| | | | - Wulf Haubensak
- Department of Neuronal Cell Biology, Center for Brain Research, Medical University of Vienna, A-Vienna, Austria
- Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Vienna Biocenter (VBC), Campus-Vienna-Biocenter 1, A-1030Vienna, Austria
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Petersen BC. An economic model and evidence of the evolution of human intelligence in the Middle Pleistocene: Climate change and assortative mating. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0287964. [PMID: 37531351 PMCID: PMC10395973 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0287964] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2022] [Accepted: 06/19/2023] [Indexed: 08/04/2023] Open
Abstract
A main objective of this paper is to provide the first model of how climate change, working through sexual selection, could have led to dramatic increases in hominin brain size, and presumably intelligence, in the Middle Pleistocene. The model is built using core elements from the field of family economics, including assortative mating and specialization and complementarities between mates. The main assumptions are that family public goods (e.g., conversation, shelter, fire) were particularly cognitively intensive to produce and became increasingly important for child survival during glacial phases. Intermediate climates (e.g., not the depths of severe glacial phases) create the largest gains from specialization, encouraging negative assortative mating. In contrast, severe glacial phases encourage positive assortative mating because of the rising importance of family public goods. One testable hypothesis is that absence of severe glacial phases should have led to stasis in brain size. Two other testable hypotheses are that severe glacial phases should have led to speciation events, as well as increases in brain size. The evidence shows that there was a million-year stasis in cranial size prior to the start of the severe glacial phases. This stasis is broken by a speciation event (Homo heidelbergensis), with the oldest fossil evidence dated near the close of the first severe glacial phase. In the next 300 kyr, there are two additional severe glacial phases, accompanied by considerable increases in cranial capacity. The last speciation event is Homo sapiens, with the earliest fossils dated near the end of the last of these two glacial phases.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Bruce C Petersen
- Department of Economics, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Lauer DA, Lawing AM, Short RA, Manthi FK, Müller J, Head JJ, McGuire JL. Disruption of trait-environment relationships in African megafauna occurred in the middle Pleistocene. Nat Commun 2023; 14:4016. [PMID: 37463920 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39480-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2023] [Accepted: 06/15/2023] [Indexed: 07/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Mammalian megafauna have been critical to the functioning of Earth's biosphere for millions of years. However, since the Plio-Pleistocene, their biodiversity has declined concurrently with dramatic environmental change and hominin evolution. While these biodiversity declines are well-documented, their implications for the ecological function of megafaunal communities remain uncertain. Here, we adapt ecometric methods to evaluate whether the functional link between communities of herbivorous, eastern African megafauna and their environments (i.e., functional trait-environment relationships) was disrupted as biodiversity losses occurred over the past 7.4 Ma. Herbivore taxonomic and functional diversity began to decline during the Pliocene as open grassland habitats emerged, persisted, and expanded. In the mid-Pleistocene, grassland expansion intensified, and climates became more variable and arid. It was then that phylogenetic diversity declined, and the trait-environment relationships of herbivore communities shifted significantly. Our results divulge the varying implications of different losses in megafaunal biodiversity. Only the losses that occurred since the mid-Pleistocene were coincident with a disturbance to community ecological function. Prior diversity losses, conversely, occurred as the megafaunal species and trait pool narrowed towards those adapted to grassland environments.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Daniel A Lauer
- Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
- School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
| | - A Michelle Lawing
- Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA
| | - Rachel A Short
- Department of Natural Resource Management, South Dakota State University, Rapid City, SD, 57703, USA
| | - Fredrick K Manthi
- Department of Earth Sciences, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - Johannes Müller
- Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, 10115, Berlin, Germany
| | - Jason J Head
- Department of Zoology and University Museum of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK
| | - Jenny L McGuire
- Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA
- School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA
- School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA
| |
Collapse
|
8
|
Zhang Y, Li Z. Three-dimensional geometric morphometric study of the Xuchang 2 cranium. J Hum Evol 2023; 178:103347. [PMID: 36966596 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2023.103347] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2022] [Revised: 02/24/2023] [Accepted: 02/24/2023] [Indexed: 04/01/2023]
Abstract
Results of traditional metric and nonmetric assessments suggest that the Xuchang hominin shares features with Neanderthals. To comprehensively compare the nuchal morphology of XC 2 to those of the genus Homo, we conduct a three-dimensional geometric morphometric study with 35 cranial landmarks and surface semilandmarks of XC 2, Homo erectus, Middle Pleistocene humans, Neanderthals, and early and recent modern humans. Results reveal that the centroid size of XC 2 is larger than that of early and recent modern humans and can only be compared to that of Middle Pleistocene humans and H. erectus. Early and recent modern humans share a nuchal morphology distinct from archaic hominins (Ngandong H. erectus, Middle Pleistocene humans, and Neanderthals), except for SM 3, Sangiran 17, and Asian and African H. erectus. Although Ngandong specimens differ from the other H. erectus, it is unclear whether this represents a temporal or spatial trend in the process of evolution of this species. The nuchal morphological resemblance between Middle Pleistocene humans and Neanderthals may be attributed to similar cranial architecture and cerebellar shape. The great nuchal morphological variation shared by recent modern humans may indicate a particular developmental pattern. In conclusion, the nuchal morphology of different human groups is highly variable and may be caused by different factors including brain globularization and developmental plasticity. XC 2 shares similar nuchal morphology with Middle Pleistocene humans and Neanderthals, but these results are insufficient to fully resolve the taxonomic status of XC 2.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Yameng Zhang
- Joint International Research Laboratory of Environmental and Social Archaeology, Shandong University, Qingdao, 266237, China; Institute of Cultural Heritage, Shandong University, Qingdao, 266237, China.
| | - Zhanyang Li
- Joint International Research Laboratory of Environmental and Social Archaeology, Shandong University, Qingdao, 266237, China; Institute of Cultural Heritage, Shandong University, Qingdao, 266237, China; Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Zhengzhou, 450000, China.
| |
Collapse
|
9
|
García-Medrano P, Moncel MH, Maldonado-Garrido E, Ollé A, Ashton N. The Western European Acheulean: Reading variability at a regional scale. J Hum Evol 2023; 179:103357. [PMID: 37060623 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2023.103357] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2022] [Revised: 03/08/2023] [Accepted: 03/12/2023] [Indexed: 04/17/2023]
Abstract
In the context of the Western European Acheulean Project, this study aims to characterize Acheulean technology in Western Europe through the analysis of handaxes and cleavers from 10 key sites (Britain 4, France 4, and Spain 2) to acquire a regional view of the occupation. The historically different systems used to categorize and analyze the data have made it difficult to compare results. Here we apply a unified and simple method (Western European Acheulean Project) that combines the traditional technological and metrical analysis of assemblages containing handaxes and cleavers with an in-depth geometric morphometric approach using three-dimensional models. This approach allows us to achieve a regional interpretation that identifies innovations through time and shaping strategies across the area. Our findings indicate the existence of two main technological groups in the sampled record: 1) northwestern and central France and Britain, from MIS 17/16 to MIS 11, and 2) Atlantic edge (Atapuerca in Spain and Menez-Dregan in France), from MIS 12/11 to MIS 8. Based on our technological analysis, the shaping of handaxes and cleavers was developed through time as a continuum of accumulative actions, with longer and more complex shaping strategies over time. Shaping technology shows traditions of manufacture over both time and geographical areas, which suggest cultural diffusion. Our geometric morphometric analysis further helped to identify not only general trends but also local adaptations in handaxe forms. Based on our findings, there were no apparent sudden innovations, but rather the application and development of specific techniques to refine size and shape.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Paula García-Medrano
- Dept. Britain, Europe and Prehistory, British Museum, Frank House, 56 Orsman Road N1 5QJ, London, UK; UMR 7194 HNHP, MNHN-CNRS-UPVD, Département Homme et Environnement, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, IPH 1 Rue René Panhard, 75013, Paris, France; Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES-CERCA), Zona Educacional 4, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona, Spain; Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Departament d'Història i Història de l'Art, Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain.
| | - Marie-Hélène Moncel
- UMR 7194 HNHP, MNHN-CNRS-UPVD, Département Homme et Environnement, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, IPH 1 Rue René Panhard, 75013, Paris, France
| | - Elías Maldonado-Garrido
- Dept. Britain, Europe and Prehistory, British Museum, Frank House, 56 Orsman Road N1 5QJ, London, UK
| | - Andreu Ollé
- Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES-CERCA), Zona Educacional 4, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona, Spain; Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Departament d'Història i Història de l'Art, Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain
| | - Nick Ashton
- Dept. Britain, Europe and Prehistory, British Museum, Frank House, 56 Orsman Road N1 5QJ, London, UK
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Antón SC, Middleton ER. Making meaning from fragmentary fossils: Early Homo in the Early to early Middle Pleistocene. J Hum Evol 2023; 179:103307. [PMID: 37030994 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2022.103307] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2022] [Revised: 11/16/2022] [Accepted: 11/27/2022] [Indexed: 04/10/2023]
Abstract
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Human Evolution, we re-evaluate the fossil record for early Homo (principally Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and Homo rudolfensis) from early diversification and dispersal in the Early Pleistocene to the ultimate demise of H. erectus in the early Middle Pleistocene. The mid-1990s marked an important historical turning point in our understanding of early Homo with the redating of key H. erectus localities, the discovery of small H. erectus in Asia, and the recovery of an even earlier presence of early Homo in Africa. As such, we compare our understanding of early Homo before and after this time and discuss how the order of fossil discovery and a focus on anchor specimens has shaped, and in many ways biased, our interpretations of early Homo species and the fossils allocated to them. Fragmentary specimens may counter conventional wisdom but are often overlooked in broad narratives. We recognize at least three different cranial and two or three pelvic morphotypes of early Homo. Just one postcranial morph aligns with any certainty to a cranial species, highlighting the importance of explicitly identifying how we link specimens together and to species; we offer two ways of visualizing these connections. Chronologically and morphologically H. erectus is a member of early Homo, not a temporally more recent species necessarily evolved from either H. habilis or H. rudolfensis. Nonetheless, an ancestral-descendant notion of their evolution influences expectations around the anatomy of missing elements, especially the foot. Weak support for long-held notions of postcranial modernity in H. erectus raises the possibility of alternative drivers of dispersal. New observations suggest that the dearth of faces in later H. erectus may mask taxonomic diversity in Asia and suggest various later mid-Pleistocene populations could derive from either Asia or Africa. Future advances will rest on the development of nuanced ways to affiliate fossils, greater transparency of implicit assumptions, and attention to detailed life history information for comparative collections; all critical pursuits for future research given the great potential they have to enrich our evolutionary reconstructions for the next fifty years and beyond.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Susan C Antón
- Center for the Study of Human Origins, Department of Anthropology, New York University, NY, NY 10003, USA.
| | - Emily R Middleton
- Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA
| |
Collapse
|
11
|
Bruner E, Holloway R, Baab KL, Rogers MJ, Semaw S. The endocast from Dana Aoule North (DAN5/P1): A 1.5 million year-old human braincase from Gona, Afar, Ethiopia. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2023; 181:206-215. [PMID: 36810873 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24717] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2021] [Revised: 12/09/2022] [Accepted: 02/06/2023] [Indexed: 02/24/2023]
Abstract
The nearly complete cranium DAN5/P1 was found at Gona (Afar, Ethiopia), dated to 1.5-1.6 Ma, and assigned to the species Homo erectus. Its size is, nonetheless, particularly small for the known range of variation of this taxon, and the cranial capacity has been estimated as 598 cc. In this study, we analyzed a reconstruction of its endocranial cast, to investigate its paleoneurological features. The main anatomical traits of the endocast were described, and its morphology was compared with other fossil and modern human samples. The endocast shows most of the traits associated with less encephalized human taxa, like narrow frontal lobes and a simple meningeal vascular network with posterior parietal branches. The parietal region is relatively tall and rounded, although not especially large. Based on our set of measures, the general endocranial proportions are within the range of fossils included in the species Homo habilis or in the genus Australopithecus. Similarities with the genus Homo include a more posterior position of the frontal lobe relative to the cranial bones, and the general endocranial length and width when size is taken into account. This new specimen extends the known brain size variability of Homo ergaster/erectus, while suggesting that differences in gross brain proportions among early human species, or even between early humans and australopiths, were absent or subtle.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Emiliano Bruner
- Programa de Paleobiología, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, Burgos, Spain
| | - Ralph Holloway
- Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA
| | - Karen L Baab
- Department of Anatomy, Midwestern University, Glendale, Arizona, USA
| | - Michael J Rogers
- Department of Anthropology, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Sileshi Semaw
- Programa de Arqueología, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, Burgos, Spain.,Stone Age Institute, Gosport, Indiana, USA
| |
Collapse
|
12
|
Hatala KG, Roach NT, Behrensmeyer AK. Fossil footprints and what they mean for hominin paleobiology. Evol Anthropol 2023; 32:39-53. [PMID: 36223539 DOI: 10.1002/evan.21963] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2021] [Revised: 05/10/2022] [Accepted: 09/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
Hominin footprints have not traditionally played prominent roles in paleoanthropological studies, aside from the famous 3.66 Ma footprints discovered at Laetoli, Tanzania in the late 1970s. This contrasts with the importance of trace fossils (ichnology) in the broader field of paleontology. Lack of attention to hominin footprints can probably be explained by perceptions that these are exceptionally rare and "curiosities" rather than sources of data that yield insights on par with skeletal fossils or artifacts. In recent years, however, discoveries of hominin footprints have surged in frequency, shining important new light on anatomy, locomotion, behaviors, and environments from a wide variety of times and places. Here, we discuss why these data are often overlooked and consider whether they are as "rare" as previously assumed. We review new ways footprint data are being used to address questions about hominin paleobiology, and we outline key opportunities for future research in hominin ichnology.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Kevin G Hatala
- Department of Biology, Chatham University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Neil T Roach
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Anna K Behrensmeyer
- Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
| |
Collapse
|
13
|
Gossa T, Hovers E. Continuity and change in lithic techno-economy of the early Acheulian on the Ethiopian highland: A case study from locality MW2; the Melka Wakena site-complex. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0277029. [PMID: 36477016 PMCID: PMC9728887 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 10/18/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Recent research has made great strides clarifying the chronology, temporal span, and geographic and technological patterning of the Acheulian in eastern Africa. However, highland occurrences of the Acheulian remain under-represented and their relationship to cultural dynamics in the Rift are still poorly understood. Recently, a stratified sequence of four archaeological layers, recording Acheulian occupations dated between ~1.6 Ma and ~1.3 Ma, has been discovered in locality MW2 of the Melka Wakena site-complex (south-central Ethiopian highlands). This database enabled a systematic exploration of the question of tempo and mode of technological changes at a local sequence, allowing, for the first time, comparison with other highland sites as well as in the Rift. The detailed techno-economic study presented in this study shows that the early Acheulian at the locality was characterized by the co-existence of lithic reduction sequences for small debitage and for flake-based Large Cutting Tool production. In the early, ~1.6 Ma assemblage, a strategy of variable raw material exploitation and technological emphasis on small debitage were coupled with production of few crude bifacial elements. These shifted at ~1.4 Ma towards a preferential and intensive exploitation of a highly knappable glassy ignimbrite and emphasis on Large Cutting Tool production, including higher investment in their techno-morphological aspects. The MW2 sequence tracks lithic technological trends observed in the Rift, with only a short time lag. Diachronic changes in the raw material economy and land use patterns may have occurred at MW2 earlier than previously reported for the Acheulian on the highlands. The behavioral dynamics gleaned from the early Acheulian assemblages at MW2 are important for our understanding of the diachronic changes in the abilities of Acheulian hominins to exploit the diverse geographic and ecological habitats of eastern Africa and beyond.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Tegenu Gossa
- Human Evolution Research Center (HERC), The University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States of America
- Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
- Department of History and Heritage Management, Arba Minch University, Arba Minch, Ethiopia
- * E-mail:
| | - Erella Hovers
- Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
- Affiliate Researcher, Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States of America
| |
Collapse
|
14
|
Gellis JJ, Foley RA. Patterns of variation in canal and root number in human post-canine teeth. J Anat 2022; 241:896-918. [PMID: 36082500 PMCID: PMC9482695 DOI: 10.1111/joa.13729] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2020] [Revised: 05/31/2022] [Accepted: 07/04/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Descriptive morphology of tooth roots traditionally focuses on number of canals and roots. However, how or if canal and root number are related is poorly understood. While it is often assumed that canal number is concomitant with root number and morphology, in practice canal number and morphology do not always covary with external root features. To investigate the relationship between canal and root number, fully developed, adult post‐canine teeth were examined and quantified from computerized tomography scans from a global sample of 945 modern humans. We tested the hypotheses that root and canal number do not follow a 1:1 ratio, that canal to root ratios differ between teeth, and that canal to root ratios differ across major human geographical groups. Results indicate that not only is root number dependent on canal number, but that this relationship becomes more variable as canal number increases, varies between individual teeth and by major geographical group, and changes as these groups increase in geographical distance from Sub‐Saharan Africa. These results show that the ratio of canal number to root number is an important indicator of variation in dental phenotypes.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Jason J Gellis
- University of Cambridge Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Cambridge, UK
| | - Robert A Foley
- University of Cambridge Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Cambridge, UK
| |
Collapse
|
15
|
Early Pleistocene hominin teeth from Gongwangling of Lantian, Central China. J Hum Evol 2022; 168:103212. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2022.103212] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2021] [Revised: 04/24/2022] [Accepted: 04/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
|
16
|
Timmermann A, Yun KS, Raia P, Ruan J, Mondanaro A, Zeller E, Zollikofer C, Ponce de León M, Lemmon D, Willeit M, Ganopolski A. Climate effects on archaic human habitats and species successions. Nature 2022; 604:495-501. [PMID: 35418680 PMCID: PMC9021022 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04600-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2021] [Accepted: 03/01/2022] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
Abstract
It has long been believed that climate shifts during the last 2 million years had a pivotal role in the evolution of our genus Homo1–3. However, given the limited number of representative palaeo-climate datasets from regions of anthropological interest, it has remained challenging to quantify this linkage. Here, we use an unprecedented transient Pleistocene coupled general circulation model simulation in combination with an extensive compilation of fossil and archaeological records to study the spatiotemporal habitat suitability for five hominin species over the past 2 million years. We show that astronomically forced changes in temperature, rainfall and terrestrial net primary production had a major impact on the observed distributions of these species. During the Early Pleistocene, hominins settled primarily in environments with weak orbital-scale climate variability. This behaviour changed substantially after the mid-Pleistocene transition, when archaic humans became global wanderers who adapted to a wide range of spatial climatic gradients. Analysis of the simulated hominin habitat overlap from approximately 300–400 thousand years ago further suggests that antiphased climate disruptions in southern Africa and Eurasia contributed to the evolutionary transformation of Homo heidelbergensis populations into Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, respectively. Our robust numerical simulations of climate-induced habitat changes provide a framework to test hypotheses on our human origin. A new model simulation of climate change during the past 2 million years indicates that the appearances and disappearances of hominin species correlate with long-term climatic anomalies.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Axel Timmermann
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, South Korea. .,Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea.
| | - Kyung-Sook Yun
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, South Korea.,Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea
| | - Pasquale Raia
- DiSTAR, Università di Napoli Federico II, Monte Sant'Angelo, Naples, Italy
| | - Jiaoyang Ruan
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, South Korea.,Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea
| | | | - Elke Zeller
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, South Korea.,Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea
| | | | | | - Danielle Lemmon
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, South Korea.,Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea
| | - Matteo Willeit
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany
| | | |
Collapse
|
17
|
Pagano AS, Smith CM, Balzeau A, Márquez S, Laitman JT. Nasopharyngeal morphology contributes to understanding the "muddle in the middle" of the Pleistocene hominin fossil record. Anat Rec (Hoboken) 2022; 305:2038-2064. [PMID: 35394685 DOI: 10.1002/ar.24913] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2021] [Revised: 02/08/2022] [Accepted: 02/26/2022] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
The late archeologist Glynn Isaac first applied the term "muddle in the middle" to a poorly understood period in the Middle Pleistocene human fossil record. This study uses the nasopharyngeal boundaries as a source of traits that may inform this unclear period of human evolution. The nasopharynx lies at the nexus of several vital physiological systems, yet relatively little is known about its importance in human evolution. We analyzed a geographically diverse contemporary Homo sapiens growth series (n = 180 adults, 237 nonadults), Homo neanderthalensis (La Chapelle aux Saints 1, La Ferrassie 1, Forbes Quarry 1, Monte Circeo 1, and Saccopastore 1), mid-Pleistocene Homo (Atapuerca 5, Kabwe 1, Petralona 1, and Steinheim 1), and two Homo erectus sensu lato (KNM-ER 3733 and Sangiran 17). Methods include traditional (Analysis 1) and 3D geometric morphometric analysis (Analysis 2). H. erectus exhibited tall, narrow nasopharyngeal shape, a robust, ancestral morphology. Kabwe 1 and Petralona 1 plotted among H. sapiens in Analysis 2, exhibiting relatively shorter and vertical cartilaginous Eustachian tubes and vertical medial pterygoid plates. Atapuerca 5 and Steinheim 1 exhibited horizontal vomeral orientation similar to H. neanderthalensis, indicating greater relative soft palate length and anteroposterior nasopharynx expansion. They may exhibit synapomorphies with H. neanderthalensis, supporting the accretionary hypothesis. Species-level differences were found among H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis, including relatively longer dilator tubae muscles and extreme facial airorhynchy among Neanderthals. Furthermore, H. neanderthalensis were autapomorphic in exhibiting horizontal pterygoid plate orientation similar to human infants, suggesting that they may have had inferiorly low placement of the torus tubarius and Eustachian tube orifice on the lateral nasopharyngeal wall in life. This study supports use of osseous nasopharyngeal boundaries both for morphological characters and understanding evolution of otitis media susceptibility in living humans.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Anthony S Pagano
- Department of Medical Sciences, Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, Nutley, New Jersey, USA
| | - Christopher M Smith
- Department of Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, New York, USA.,New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, New York, New York, USA.,Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology, Icahn School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA
| | - Antoine Balzeau
- Department de Homme et environnement, Musée de l'Homme-Palais de Chaillot, Paris, France
| | - Samuel Márquez
- Departments of Cell Biology and Otolaryngology, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, Brooklyn, New York, USA
| | - Jeffrey T Laitman
- Department of Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, New York, USA.,New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, New York, New York, USA.,Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology, Icahn School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA
| |
Collapse
|
18
|
Liu W, Athreya S, Xing S, Wu X. Hominin evolution and diversity: a comparison of earlier-Middle and later-Middle Pleistocene hominin fossil variation in China. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2022; 377:20210040. [PMID: 35125004 PMCID: PMC8819364 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0040] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Historical views of Asia as an evolutionary 'backwater' are associated with the idea that Homo erectus experienced long periods of stasis and ultimately went extinct. However, recent discoveries of well-dated Middle Pleistocene hominin fossils in China have considerably challenged these ideas and provide sufficient data to propose a testable model that explains the patterning of variation in Middle Pleistocene China, and why it changed over time. A series of hominin fossil studies comparing earlier-Middle and later-Middle Pleistocene groups confirm that the expressions of certain traits shift around 300 ka. Fossils from the later Middle Pleistocene are more variable with a mix of archaic traits as well as ones that are common in Western Eurasian early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. The period around 300 ka appears to have been a critical turning point for later-Middle Pleistocene morphological changes in China. It coincides with a phase of climatic instability in the Northern Hemisphere between Marine Isotope Stages 12 and 10 that would have led to changes in gene flow patterning, and regional population survival/extinction. This localized and testable model can be used for future explorations of hominin evolution in later Pleistocene eastern Eurasia. This article is part of the theme issue 'The impact of Chinese palaeontology on evolutionary research'.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Wu Liu
- Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, People's Republic of China.,CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Beijing 100044, People's Republic of China
| | - Sheela Athreya
- Liberal Arts Program, Texas A&M University-Qatar, Doha, Qatar
| | - Song Xing
- Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, People's Republic of China.,CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Beijing 100044, People's Republic of China
| | - Xiujie Wu
- Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, People's Republic of China.,CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Beijing 100044, People's Republic of China
| |
Collapse
|
19
|
Urciuoli A, Kubat J, Schisanowski L, Schrenk F, Zipfel B, Tawane M, Bam L, Alba DM, Kullmer O. Cochlear morphology of Indonesian Homo erectus from Sangiran. J Hum Evol 2022; 165:103163. [PMID: 35299091 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2022.103163] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2021] [Revised: 01/31/2022] [Accepted: 01/31/2022] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
Homo erectus s.l. is key for deciphering the origin and subsequent evolution of genus Homo. However, the characterization of this species is hindered by the existence of multiple variants in both mainland and insular Asia, as a result of divergent chronogeographical evolutionary trends, genetic isolation, and interbreeding with other human species. Previous research has shown that cochlear morphology embeds taxonomic and phylogenetic information that may help infer the phylogenetic relationships among hominin species. Here we describe the cochlear morphology of two Indonesian H. erectus individuals (Sangiran 2 and 4), and compare it with a sample of australopiths, Middle to Late Pleistocene humans, and extant humans by means of linear measurements and both principal components and canonical variates analyses performed on shape ratios. Our results indicate that H. erectus displays a mosaic morphology that combines plesiomorphic (australopithlike) features (such as a chimplike round cochlear cross section and low cochlear thickness), with derived characters of later humans (a voluminous and long cochlea, possibly related to hearing abilities)-consistent with the more basal position of H. erectus. Our results also denote substantial variation between the two studied individuals, particularly in the length and radius of the first turn, as well as cross-sectional shape. Given the small size of the available sample, it is not possible to discern whether such differences merely reflect intraspecific variation among roughly coeval H. erectus individuals or whether they might result from greater age differences between them than currently considered. However, our results demonstrate that most characters found in later humans were already present in Indonesian H. erectus, with the exception of Neanderthals, which display an autapomorphic condition relative to other Homo species.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Alessandro Urciuoli
- Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici ICTA-ICP, c/Columnes s/n, Campus de la UAB, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, 08193, Spain.
| | - Jülide Kubat
- CNRS UMR 8045 Babel, Université de Paris, Faculté de chirurgie dentaire, 1 rue Maurice Arnoux, Montrouge, 92120, France; Division of Palaeoanthropology, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Lisa Schisanowski
- Division of Palaeoanthropology, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Friedemann Schrenk
- Division of Palaeoanthropology, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Department of Paleobiology and Environment, Institute of Ecology, Evolution, and Diversity, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Bernhard Zipfel
- Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Mirriam Tawane
- Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, Pretoria, South Africa
| | - Lunga Bam
- Department of Radiation Science, South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa), Pretoria 0001, South Africa
| | - David M Alba
- Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici ICTA-ICP, c/Columnes s/n, Campus de la UAB, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, 08193, Spain
| | - Ottmar Kullmer
- Division of Palaeoanthropology, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Department of Paleobiology and Environment, Institute of Ecology, Evolution, and Diversity, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
20
|
Barr WA, Pobiner B, Rowan J, Du A, Faith JT. No sustained increase in zooarchaeological evidence for carnivory after the appearance of Homo erectus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2115540119. [PMID: 35074877 PMCID: PMC8812535 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2115540119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2021] [Accepted: 12/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The appearance of Homo erectus shortly after 2.0 Ma is widely considered a turning point in human dietary evolution, with increased consumption of animal tissues driving the evolution of larger brain and body size and a reorganization of the gut. An increase in the size and number of zooarchaeological assemblages after the appearance of H. erectus is often offered as a central piece of archaeological evidence for increased carnivory in this species, but this characterization has yet to be subject to detailed scrutiny. Any widespread dietary shift leading to the acquisition of key traits in H. erectus should be persistent in the zooarchaeological record through time and can only be convincingly demonstrated by a broad-scale analysis that transcends individual sites or localities. Here, we present a quantitative synthesis of the zooarchaeological record of eastern Africa from 2.6 to 1.2 Ma. We show that several proxies for the prevalence of hominin carnivory are all strongly related to how well the fossil record has been sampled, which constrains the zooarchaeological visibility of hominin carnivory. When correcting for sampling effort, there is no sustained increase in the amount of evidence for hominin carnivory between 2.6 and 1.2 Ma. Our observations undercut evolutionary narratives linking anatomical and behavioral traits to increased meat consumption in H. erectus, suggesting that other factors are likely responsible for the appearance of its human-like traits.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- W Andrew Barr
- Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052;
| | - Briana Pobiner
- Human Origins Program, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560
| | - John Rowan
- Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, Albany, NY 12222
| | - Andrew Du
- Department of Anthropology and Geography, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523
| | - J Tyler Faith
- Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84108
- Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112
- Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa
| |
Collapse
|
21
|
Baab KL, Rogers M, Bruner E, Semaw S. Reconstruction and analysis of the DAN5/P1 and BSN12/P1 Gona Early Pleistocene Homo fossils. J Hum Evol 2021; 162:103102. [PMID: 34891069 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2021.103102] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2021] [Revised: 10/18/2021] [Accepted: 10/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Two Early Pleistocene fossils from Gona, Ethiopia, were originally assigned to Homo erectus, and their differences in size and robusticity were attributed to either sexual dimorphism or anagenetic evolution. In the current study, we both revisit the taxonomic affinities of these fossils and assess whether morphological differences between them reflect temporal evolution or sexual variation. We generated virtual reconstructions of the mostly complete ∼1.55 Ma DAN5/P1 calvaria and the less complete 1.26 Ma BSN12/P1 fossil, allowing us to directly compare their anterior vault shapes using landmark-based shape analysis. The two fossils are similar in calvaria shape to H. erectus and also to other Early Pleistocene Homo species based on a geometric morphometric analysis of calvaria landmarks and semilandmarks. The DAN5/P1 fossil bears a particularly close affinity to the Georgian H. erectus fossils and to KNM-ER 1813 (H. habilis), probably reflecting allometric influences on vault shape. Combined with species-specific traits of the neurocranium (e.g., midline keeling, angular torus), we confirm that these fossils are likely early African H. erectus. We calculated regression-based estimates of endocranial volume for BSN12/P1 of 882-910 cm3 based on three virtual reconstructions. Although BSN12/P1 is markedly larger than DAN5/P1 (598 cm3), both fossils represent the smallest adult H. erectus known from their respective time periods in Africa. Some of the difference in endocranial volume between the two Gona fossils reflects broader species-level brain expansion from 1.77 to 0.01 Ma, confirmed here using a large sample (n = 38) of H. erectus. However, shape differences between these fossils did not reflect species-level changes to calvaria shape. Moreover, the analysis failed to recover a clear pattern of sexually patterned size or shape differences within H. erectus based on our current assessments of sex for individual fossils.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Karen L Baab
- Department of Anatomy, Midwestern University, 19555 N. 59th Ave., Glendale, AZ 85012, USA.
| | - Michael Rogers
- Department of Anthropology, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St., New Haven, CT 06515, USA
| | - Emiliano Bruner
- Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), Sierra de Atapuerca 3, Burgos, 09002, Spain
| | - Sileshi Semaw
- Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), Sierra de Atapuerca 3, Burgos, 09002, Spain; Stone Age Institute and CRAFT Research Center, 1392 W. Dittemore Rd. Gosport, IN 47408, USA
| |
Collapse
|
22
|
White S, Pope M, Hillson S, Soligo C. Geometric morphometric variability in the supraorbital and orbital region of Middle Pleistocene hominins: Implications for the taxonomy and evolution of later Homo. J Hum Evol 2021; 162:103095. [PMID: 34847365 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2021.103095] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2020] [Revised: 10/10/2021] [Accepted: 10/11/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
This study assessed variation in the supraorbital and orbital region of the Middle Pleistocene hominins (MPHs), sometimes called Homo heidelbergensis s.l., to test whether it matched the expectations of intraspecific variation. The morphological distinctiveness and relative variation of this region, which is relatively well represented in the hominin fossil record, was analyzed quantitatively in a comparative taxonomic framework. Coordinates of 230 3D landmarks (20) and sliding semilandmarks (210) were collected from 704 specimens from species of Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus, Gorilla, Pan, Papio, and Macaca. Results showed that the MPHs had expected levels of morphological distinctiveness and intragroup and intergroup variation in supraorbital and orbital morphology, relative to commonly recognized non-hominin catarrhine species. However, the Procrustes distances between this group and H. sapiens were significantly higher than expected for two closely related catarrhine species. Furthermore, this study showed that variation within the MPH could be similarly well contained within existing hypodigms of H. sapiens, H. neanderthalensis, and H. erectus s.l. Although quantitative assessment of supraorbital and orbital morphology did not allow differentiation between taxonomic hypotheses in later Homo, it could be used to test individual taxonomic affiliation and identify potentially anomalous individuals. This study confirmed a complicated pattern of supraorbital and orbital morphology in the MPH fossil record and raises further questions over our understanding of the speciation of H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis and taxonomic diversity in later Homo.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Suzanna White
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, 14 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0BW, UK.
| | - Matt Pope
- Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY, UK
| | - Simon Hillson
- Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY, UK
| | - Christophe Soligo
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, 14 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0BW, UK
| |
Collapse
|
23
|
Garcia-Pelegrin E, Wilkins C, Clayton NS. The Ape That Lived to Tell the Tale. The Evolution of the Art of Storytelling and Its Relationship to Mental Time Travel and Theory of Mind. Front Psychol 2021; 12:755783. [PMID: 34744932 PMCID: PMC8569916 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.755783] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2021] [Accepted: 09/20/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Engaging in the art of creating and telling stories is a defining behaviour of humankind. Humans have been sharing stories with each other, with and without words, since the dawn of recorded history, but the cognitive foundations of the behaviour can be traced deeper into our past. The emergence of stories can be strongly linked to Mental Time Travel (the ability to recall the past and imagine the future) and plays a key role in our ability to communicate past, present and future scenarios with other individuals, within and beyond our lifetimes. Stories are products engraved within the concept of time, constructed to elucidate the past experiences of the self, but designed with the future in mind, thus imparting lessons of such experiences to the receiver. By being privy to the experiences of others, humans can imagine themselves in a similar position to the protagonist of the story, thus mentally learning from an experience they might have never encountered other than in the mind's eye. Evolutionary Psychology investigates how the engagement in artistic endeavours by our ancestors in the Pleistocene granted them an advantage when confronted with obstacles that challenged their survival or reproductive fitness and questions whether art is an adaptation of the human mind or a spandrel of other cognitive adaptations. However, little attention has been placed on the cognitive abilities that might have been imperative for the development of art. Here, we examine the relationship between art, storytelling, Mental Time Travel and Theory of Mind (i.e., the ability to attribute mental states to others). We suggest that Mental Time Travel played a key role in the development of storytelling because through stories, humans can fundamentally transcend their present condition, by being able to imagine different times, separate realities, and place themselves and others anywhere within the time space continuum. We argue that the development of a Theory of Mind also sparked storytelling practises in humans as a method of diffusing the past experiences of the self to others whilst enabling the receiver to dissociate between the past experiences of others and their own, and to understand them as lessons for a possible future. We propose that when artistic products rely on storytelling in form and function, they ought to be considered separate from other forms of art whose appreciation capitalise on our aesthetic preferences.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
| | - Clive Wilkins
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Nicola S Clayton
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| |
Collapse
|
24
|
Comparative dental study between Homo antecessor and Chinese Homo erectus: Nonmetric features and geometric morphometrics. J Hum Evol 2021; 161:103087. [PMID: 34742110 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2021.103087] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2021] [Revised: 09/13/2021] [Accepted: 09/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
The Chinese Middle Pleistocene fossils from Hexian, Xichuan, Yiyuan, and Zhoukoudian have been generally classified as Homo erectus s.s. These hominins share some primitive features with other Homo specimens, but they also display unique cranial and dental traits. Thus, the Chinese Middle Pleistocene hominins share with other European and Asian hominin populations the so-called 'Eurasian dental pattern'. The late Early Pleistocene hominins from Gran Dolina-TD6.2 (Spain), representing the species Homo antecessor, also exhibit the Eurasian dental pattern, which may suggest common roots. To assess phylogenetic affinities of these two taxa, we evaluated and compared nonmetric and metric dental features and interpreted morphological differences within a comparative hominin framework. We determined that the robust roots of the molars, the shelf-like protostylid, the dendrite-like pattern of the enamel-dentine junction surface of the upper fourth premolars and molars, the strongly folded dentine of the labial surface of the upper incisors, and the rare occurrence of a mid-trigonid crest in the lower molars, are all characteristic of Chinese H. erectus. With regard to H. antecessor, we observed the consistent expression of a continuous mid-trigonid crest, the absence of a cingulum in the upper canines, a complex root pattern of the lower premolars, and a rhomboidal occlusal contour and occlusal polygon and protrusion in the external outline of a large a bulging hypocone in the first and second upper molars. Using two-dimensional geometric morphometrics, we further demonstrated that H. antecessor falls outside the range of variation of Chinese H. erectus for occlusal crown outline shape, the orientation of occlusal grooves, and relative locations of anterior and posterior foveae in the P4s, P3s, M1s, M2s, and M2s. Given their geographic and temporal separation, the differences between these two species suggest their divergence occurred at some point in the Early Pleistocene, and thereafter they followed different evolutionary paths.
Collapse
|
25
|
Badania kopalnego DNA – możliwości i ograniczenia. POSTEP HIG MED DOSW 2021. [DOI: 10.2478/ahem-2021-0044] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Abstrakt
Ostatnie cztery dekady przyniosły znaczący rozwój archeologii molekularnej i badania nad kopalnym DNA (aDNA). Nowatorskie metody uwzględniają szeroki zakres badań, począwszy od sekwencjonowania niewielkich fragmentów mitochondrialnego DNA po wielkoskalowe badania całych populacji, łączące sekwencjonowanie genomów mitochondrialnych, genów podlegających doborowi naturalnemu, jak i całych genomów jądrowych. Postęp, zwłaszcza w dziedzinie technologii sekwencjonowania DNA, umożliwił pozyskanie informacji ze szczątków paleontologicznych i materiału archeologicznego, umożliwiając zbadanie związków filogenetycznych między wymarłymi i współczesnymi gatunkami. Dzięki zastosowaniu technologii sekwencjonowania nowej generacji możliwe stało się poznanie sekwencji DNA nie tylko bezpośrednio ze szczątków ludzkich lub zwierzęcych, ale także z osadów sedymentacyjnych z głębin jezior oraz jaskiń. W artykule przedstawiono możliwości i ograniczenia występujące w badaniach nad kopalnym DNA ludzi, zwierząt czy bakterii z podkreśleniem wkładu polskich badaczy w rozwój tej dziedziny nauki.
Collapse
|
26
|
Abstract
We review the state of paleoanthropology research in Asia. We survey the fossil record, articulate the current understanding, and delineate the points of contention. Although Asia received less attention than Europe and Africa did in the second half of the twentieth century, an increase in reliably dated fossil materials and the advances in genetics have fueled new research. The long and complex evolutionary history of humans in Asia throughout the Pleistocene can be explained by a balance of mechanisms, between gene flow among different populations and continuity of regional ancestry. This pattern is reflected in fossil morphology and paleogenomics. Critical understanding of the sociocultural forces that shaped the history of hominin fossil research in Asia is important in charting the way forward.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Sang-Hee Lee
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA
| | - Autumn Hudock
- Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina 28223, USA
- Current affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA
| |
Collapse
|
27
|
Vidal-Cordasco M, Rodríguez J, Prado-Nóvoa O, Zorrilla-Revilla G, Mateos A. Locomotor Economy and Foraging Ecology in Hominins. JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2021. [DOI: 10.1086/715402] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
|
28
|
Ahlquist KD, Bañuelos MM, Funk A, Lai J, Rong S, Villanea FA, Witt KE. Our Tangled Family Tree: New Genomic Methods Offer Insight into the Legacy of Archaic Admixture. Genome Biol Evol 2021; 13:evab115. [PMID: 34028527 PMCID: PMC8480178 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evab115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2021] [Revised: 05/07/2021] [Accepted: 05/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
The archaic ancestry present in the human genome has captured the imagination of both scientists and the wider public in recent years. This excitement is the result of new studies pushing the envelope of what we can learn from the archaic genetic information that has survived for over 50,000 years in the human genome. Here, we review the most recent ten years of literature on the topic of archaic introgression, including the current state of knowledge on Neanderthal and Denisovan introgression, as well as introgression from other as-yet unidentified archaic populations. We focus this review on four topics: 1) a reimagining of human demographic history, including evidence for multiple admixture events between modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other archaic populations; 2) state-of-the-art methods for detecting archaic ancestry in population-level genomic data; 3) how these novel methods can detect archaic introgression in modern African populations; and 4) the functional consequences of archaic gene variants, including how those variants were co-opted into novel function in modern human populations. The goal of this review is to provide a simple-to-access reference for the relevant methods and novel data, which has changed our understanding of the relationship between our species and its siblings. This body of literature reveals the large degree to which the genetic legacy of these extinct hominins has been integrated into the human populations of today.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- K D Ahlquist
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Mayra M Bañuelos
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Alyssa Funk
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Jiaying Lai
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Stephen Rong
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Fernando A Villanea
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado, USA
| | - Kelsey E Witt
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| |
Collapse
|
29
|
Hölzchen E, Hertler C, Mateos A, Rodríguez J, Berndt JO, Timm IJ. Discovering the opposite shore: How did hominins cross sea straits? PLoS One 2021; 16:e0252885. [PMID: 34191820 PMCID: PMC8244915 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0252885] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2021] [Accepted: 05/25/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Understanding hominin expansions requires the comprehension of movement processes at different scales. In many models of hominin expansion these processes are viewed as being determined by large-scale effects, such as changes in climate and vegetation spanning continents and thousands or even millions of years. However, these large-scale patterns of expansions also need to be considered as possibly resulting from the accumulation of small-scale decisions of individual hominins. Moving on a continental scale may for instance involve crossing a water barrier. We present a generalized agent-based model for simulating the crossing of a water barrier where the agents represent the hominin individuals. The model can be configured to represent a variety of movement modes across water. Here, we compare four different behavioral scenarios in conjunction with a set of water barrier configurations, in which agents move in water by either paddling, drifting, swimming or rafting. We introduce the crossing-success-rate (CSR) to quantify the performance in water crossing. Our study suggests that more focus should be directed towards the exploration of behavioral models for hominins, as directionality may be a more powerful factor for crossing a barrier than environmental opportunities alone. A prerequisite for this is to perceive the opposite shore. Furthermore, to provide a comprehensive understanding of hominin expansions, the CSR allows for the integration of results obtained from small-scale simulations into large-scale models for hominin expansion.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Ericson Hölzchen
- Faculty of Biosciences, Department of Paleobiology and Environment, Institute of Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- The Role of Culture in Early Expansion of Humans (ROCEEH), Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- The Role of Culture in Early Expansion of Humans (ROCEEH), Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Heidelberg, Germany
- * E-mail:
| | - Christine Hertler
- The Role of Culture in Early Expansion of Humans (ROCEEH), Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- The Role of Culture in Early Expansion of Humans (ROCEEH), Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Ana Mateos
- National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH), Burgos, Spain
| | - Jesús Rodríguez
- National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH), Burgos, Spain
| | - Jan Ole Berndt
- Chair for Business Informatics I Trier Lab for Social Simulation (TRILABS), Trier University, Trier, Germany
| | - Ingo J. Timm
- Chair for Business Informatics I Trier Lab for Social Simulation (TRILABS), Trier University, Trier, Germany
- German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) Cognitive Social Simulation (Branch Trier), Trier University, Trier, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
30
|
Athreya S, Hopkins A. Conceptual issues in hominin taxonomy: Homo heidelbergensis and an ethnobiological reframing of species. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2021; 175 Suppl 72:4-26. [PMID: 34117636 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24330] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2021] [Revised: 04/28/2021] [Accepted: 04/29/2021] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Efforts to name and classify Middle Pleistocene Homo, often referred to as "Homo heidelbergensis" are hampered by confusing patterns of morphology but also by conflicting paleoanthropological ideologies that are embedded in approaches to hominin taxonomy, nomenclature, and the species concept. We deconstruct these issues to show how the field's search for a "real" species relies on strict adherence to pre-Darwinian essentialist naming rules in a post-typological world. We then examine Middle Pleistocene Homo through the framework of ethnobiology, which examines on how Indigenous societies perceive, classify, and name biological organisms. This research reminds us that across human societies, taxonomies function to (1) identify and classify organisms based on consensus pattern recognition and (2) construct a stable nomenclature for effective storage, retrieval and communication of information. Naming Middle Pleistocene Homo as a "real" species cannot be verified with the current data; and separating regional groups into distinct evolutionary lineages creates taxa that are not defined by readily perceptible or universally salient differences. Based on ethnobiological studies of this kind of patterning, referring to these hominins above the level of the species according to their generic category with modifiers (e.g., "European Middle Pleistocene Homo") is consistent with observed human capabilities for cognitive differentiation, is both necessary and sufficient given the current data, and will allow for the most clear communication across ideologies going forward.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Sheela Athreya
- Liberal Arts Program, Texas A&M University-Qatar, Doha, Qatar.,Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA
| | - Allison Hopkins
- Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA
| |
Collapse
|
31
|
Hammond AS, Mavuso SS, Biernat M, Braun DR, Jinnah Z, Kuo S, Melaku S, Wemanya SN, Ndiema EK, Patterson DB, Uno KT, Palcu DV. New hominin remains and revised context from the earliest Homo erectus locality in East Turkana, Kenya. Nat Commun 2021; 12:1939. [PMID: 33850143 PMCID: PMC8044126 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22208-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2020] [Accepted: 03/05/2021] [Indexed: 02/01/2023] Open
Abstract
The KNM-ER 2598 occipital is among the oldest fossils attributed to Homo erectus but questions have been raised about whether it may derive from a younger horizon. Here we report on efforts to relocate the KNM-ER 2598 locality and investigate its paleontological and geological context. Although located in a different East Turkana collection area (Area 13) than initially reported, the locality is stratigraphically positioned below the KBS Tuff and the outcrops show no evidence of deflation of a younger unit, supporting an age of >1.855 Ma. Newly recovered faunal material consists primarily of C4 grazers, further confirmed by enamel isotope data. A hominin proximal 3rd metatarsal and partial ilium were discovered <50 m from the reconstructed location where KNM-ER 2598 was originally found but these cannot be associated directly with the occipital. The postcrania are consistent with fossil Homo and may represent the earliest postcrania attributable to Homo erectus.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Ashley S Hammond
- Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA.
- New York Consortium of Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP), New York, NY, USA.
| | | | - Maryse Biernat
- School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | - David R Braun
- Department of Anthropology and Center for Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
- Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Zubair Jinnah
- School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Sharon Kuo
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
| | - Sahleselasie Melaku
- Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage (ARCCH), National Museum of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
- Paleoanthropology and Paleoenvironment Program, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Sylvia N Wemanya
- Archaeology Section, Department of Earth Sciences, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya
- Department of Archaeology and History, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - Emmanuel K Ndiema
- Archaeology Section, Department of Earth Sciences, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - David B Patterson
- Department of Biology, University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, GA, USA
| | - Kevin T Uno
- Division of Biology and Paleo Environment, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA
| | - Dan V Palcu
- Paleomagnetic Laboratory 'Fort Hoofddijk', Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
- Instituto Oceanográfico, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| |
Collapse
|
32
|
Abstract
Homo erectus is the first hominin species with a truly cosmopolitan distribution and resembles recent humans in its broad spatial distribution. The microevolutionary events associated with dispersal and local adaptation may have produced similar population structure in both species. Understanding the evolutionary population dynamics of H. erectus has larger implications for the emergence of later Homo lineages in the Middle Pleistocene. Quantitative genetics models provide a means of interrogating aspects of long-standing H. erectus population history narratives. For the current study, cranial fossils were sorted into six major palaeodemes from sites across Africa and Asia spanning 1.8-0.1 Ma. Three-dimensional shape data from the occipital and frontal bones were used to compare intraspecific variation and test evolutionary hypotheses. Results indicate that H. erectus had higher individual and group variation than Homo sapiens, probably reflecting different levels of genetic diversity and population history in these spatially disperse species. This study also revealed distinct evolutionary histories for frontal and occipital bone shape in H. erectus, with a larger role for natural selection in the former. One scenario consistent with these findings is climate-driven facial adaptation in H. erectus, which is reflected in the frontal bone through integration with the orbits.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Karen L Baab
- Department of Anatomy, College of Graduate Studies, Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ 85308, USA
| |
Collapse
|
33
|
Xing S, Martinón-Torres M, Deng C, Shao Q, Wang Y, Luo Y, Zhou X, Pan L, Ge J, Bermúdez de Castro JM, Liu W. Early Pleistocene hominin teeth from Meipu, southern China. J Hum Evol 2021; 151:102924. [PMID: 33418452 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102924] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2020] [Revised: 11/23/2020] [Accepted: 11/24/2020] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
The rarity and poor preservation of hominin fossils from the East Asian Early Pleistocene hamper our understanding of their taxonomy and possible phylogenetic relationship with other members of the genus Homo. In the 1970s, four isolated hominin teeth were recovered from the Meipu site, southern China, which biostratigraphic analysis placed in the late Early Pleistocene. Early reports assigned the teeth to late Homo erectus. Since then, the teeth have not been re-evaluated, nor has reliable dating been performed at the Meipu site. Here, biostratigraphic and paleomagnetic dating allow for a more precise chronological constraint of the Meipu hominins in the late Early Pleistocene, between 780 ka and 990 ka, making them one of the few known hominins for this time in mainland Asia. The comparison of the morphology of the Meipu teeth with other members of the genus Homo reveals that the Meipu teeth preserve traits such as moderate shoveling of the I1, the square crown contour of M1, and a buccolingually wider lingual cusp in P4 that make them closer to early Homo specimens from Africa and Homo ergaster from Dmanisi (Georgia). In addition, the Meipu teeth exhibit features that are more typical for late mainland East Asian H. erectus, such as the moderately convex I1 labial surface and a pronouncedly convex I2 labial surface. In these features, the Meipu hominins are morphologically intermediate between African/Dmanisi early Homo and East Asian Middle Pleistocene hominins. This study contributes to a better understanding of the morphologies and the taxonomic status of East Asian Early Pleistocene hominins, a time period for which the hominin evidence with secure stratigraphic context is scarce.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Song Xing
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Beijing, China; Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre La Evolución Humana, Paseo de La Sierra de Atapuerca S/n, Burgos, Spain
| | - María Martinón-Torres
- Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre La Evolución Humana, Paseo de La Sierra de Atapuerca S/n, Burgos, Spain; University College London Anthropology, London, UK
| | - Chenglong Deng
- State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Qingfeng Shao
- College of Geographical Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
| | - Yuan Wang
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Beijing, China
| | - Yunbing Luo
- Institute of Archeology and Cultural Relics of Hubei Province, Wuhan, China
| | | | - Lei Pan
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Beijing, China
| | - Junyi Ge
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Beijing, China.
| | - José María Bermúdez de Castro
- Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre La Evolución Humana, Paseo de La Sierra de Atapuerca S/n, Burgos, Spain; University College London Anthropology, London, UK
| | - Wu Liu
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Beijing, China
| |
Collapse
|
34
|
A 1.4-million-year-old bone handaxe from Konso, Ethiopia, shows advanced tool technology in the early Acheulean. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2020; 117:18393-18400. [PMID: 32661154 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2006370117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
In the past decade, the early Acheulean before 1 Mya has been a focus of active research. Acheulean lithic assemblages have been shown to extend back to ∼1.75 Mya, and considerable advances in core reduction technologies are seen by 1.5 to 1.4 Mya. Here we report a bifacially flaked bone fragment (maximum dimension ∼13 cm) of a hippopotamus femur from the ∼1.4 Mya sediments of the Konso Formation in southern Ethiopia. The large number of flake scars and their distribution pattern, together with the high frequency of cone fractures, indicate anthropogenic flaking into handaxe-like form. Use-wear analyses show quasi-continuous alternate microflake scars, wear polish, edge rounding, and striae patches along an ∼5-cm-long edge toward the handaxe tip. The striae run predominantly oblique to the edge, with some perpendicular, on both the cortical and inner faces. The combined evidence is consistent with the use of this bone artifact in longitudinal motions, such as in cutting and/or sawing. This bone handaxe is the oldest known extensively flaked example from the Early Pleistocene. Despite scarcity of well-shaped bone tools, its presence at Konso shows that sophisticated flaking was practiced by ∼1.4 Mya, not only on a range of lithic materials, but also occasionally on bone, thus expanding the documented technological repertoire of African Early Pleistocene Homo.
Collapse
|
35
|
García-Campos C, Modesto-Mata M, Martinón-Torres M, Martínez de Pinillos M, Martín-Francés L, Arsuaga JL, Bermúdez de Castro JM. Sexual dimorphism of the enamel and dentine dimensions of the permanent canines of the Middle Pleistocene hominins from Sima de los Huesos (Burgos, Spain). J Hum Evol 2020; 144:102793. [PMID: 32442650 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102793] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2018] [Revised: 03/26/2020] [Accepted: 03/26/2020] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Abstract
Sexual dimorphism is an important component of the total variation seen in populations and plays a key role in taxonomic debates. In this study, microtomographic (microcomputed tomography) techniques were applied to a sample of hominin teeth from the Sima de los Huesos site (Spain). Dental tissue proportions of the permanent canines were assessed to characterize the pattern and degree of sexual dimorphism within this population. In addition, the possible similarities and differences with the Homo neanderthalensis remains from Krapina (Croatia) and with a recent modern human sample were evaluated. A combination of classical statistical approaches with more novel techniques allowed us not only to ratify the sex allocation of the individuals previously assigned in the literature but also to estimate the sex of the youngest individuals, which were not assessed in previous studies. Likewise, the sexes of certain extensively worn canines and isolated pieces were estimated. As a result, the sex ratio observed in our dental sample from the Sima de los Huesos population is 5:9 (Nm:Nf). In general terms, both Sima de los Huesos and Krapina dental samples have a degree of sexual dimorphism in their permanent canine tissue proportions that does not surpass that of modern humans. The marked dimorphic root volume of Sima de los Huesos mandibular canines is the exception, which surpasses the modern human mean, although it falls within the 95% confidence interval. Therefore, our results do not support that dental tissue proportions of the European Middle Pleistocene populations were more dimorphic than in modern humans. However, the differences in canine tissue proportions are great enough to allow sex estimation with a high degree of confidence.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Cecilia García-Campos
- Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre La Evolución Humana, Paseo de La Sierra de Atapuerca 3, 09002, Burgos, Spain; Anthropology Department, University College London, 14 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0BW, UK.
| | - Mario Modesto-Mata
- Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre La Evolución Humana, Paseo de La Sierra de Atapuerca 3, 09002, Burgos, Spain; Anthropology Department, University College London, 14 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0BW, UK
| | - María Martinón-Torres
- Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre La Evolución Humana, Paseo de La Sierra de Atapuerca 3, 09002, Burgos, Spain; Anthropology Department, University College London, 14 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0BW, UK
| | - Marina Martínez de Pinillos
- Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre La Evolución Humana, Paseo de La Sierra de Atapuerca 3, 09002, Burgos, Spain; Anthropology Department, University College London, 14 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0BW, UK
| | - Laura Martín-Francés
- Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre La Evolución Humana, Paseo de La Sierra de Atapuerca 3, 09002, Burgos, Spain; Anthropology Department, University College London, 14 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0BW, UK; Université de Bordeaux, CNRS, MCC, PACEA, UMR 5199, F-33615, Pessac Cedex, France
| | - Juan Luis Arsuaga
- Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolución y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain
| | - José María Bermúdez de Castro
- Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre La Evolución Humana, Paseo de La Sierra de Atapuerca 3, 09002, Burgos, Spain; Anthropology Department, University College London, 14 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0BW, UK
| |
Collapse
|
36
|
Herries AIR, Martin JM, Leece AB, Adams JW, Boschian G, Joannes-Boyau R, Edwards TR, Mallett T, Massey J, Murszewski A, Neubauer S, Pickering R, Strait DS, Armstrong BJ, Baker S, Caruana MV, Denham T, Hellstrom J, Moggi-Cecchi J, Mokobane S, Penzo-Kajewski P, Rovinsky DS, Schwartz GT, Stammers RC, Wilson C, Woodhead J, Menter C. Contemporaneity of Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and early Homo erectus in South Africa. Science 2020; 368:368/6486/eaaw7293. [PMID: 32241925 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaw7293] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2019] [Accepted: 02/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Abstract
Understanding the extinction of Australopithecus and origins of Paranthropus and Homo in South Africa has been hampered by the perceived complex geological context of hominin fossils, poor chronological resolution, and a lack of well-preserved early Homo specimens. We describe, date, and contextualize the discovery of two hominin crania from Drimolen Main Quarry in South Africa. At ~2.04 million to 1.95 million years old, DNH 152 represents the earliest definitive occurrence of Paranthropus robustus, and DNH 134 represents the earliest occurrence of a cranium with clear affinities to Homo erectus These crania also show that Homo, Paranthropus, and Australopithecus were contemporaneous at ~2 million years ago. This high taxonomic diversity is also reflected in non-hominin species and provides evidence of endemic evolution and dispersal during a period of climatic variability.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Andy I R Herries
- Palaeoscience, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086 VIC, Australia. .,Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa
| | - Jesse M Martin
- Palaeoscience, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086 VIC, Australia
| | - A B Leece
- Palaeoscience, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086 VIC, Australia
| | - Justin W Adams
- Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University, VIC, Australia.,Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa
| | - Giovanni Boschian
- Department of Biology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.,Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa
| | - Renaud Joannes-Boyau
- Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group (GARG), Southern Cross University, Military Road, Lismore, 2480 NSW, Australia.,Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa
| | - Tara R Edwards
- Palaeoscience, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086 VIC, Australia
| | - Tom Mallett
- Palaeoscience, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086 VIC, Australia
| | - Jason Massey
- Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University, VIC, Australia.,Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN, USA
| | - Ashleigh Murszewski
- Palaeoscience, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086 VIC, Australia
| | - Simon Neubauer
- Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Robyn Pickering
- Department of Geological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa.,Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
| | - David S Strait
- Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA.,Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa
| | - Brian J Armstrong
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa
| | - Stephanie Baker
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa
| | - Matthew V Caruana
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa
| | - Tim Denham
- Geoarchaeology Research Group, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
| | - John Hellstrom
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | | | - Simon Mokobane
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa
| | - Paul Penzo-Kajewski
- Palaeoscience, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086 VIC, Australia
| | - Douglass S Rovinsky
- Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University, VIC, Australia
| | - Gary T Schwartz
- Institute of Human Origins, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA
| | - Rhiannon C Stammers
- Palaeoscience, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086 VIC, Australia
| | - Coen Wilson
- Palaeoscience, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086 VIC, Australia
| | - Jon Woodhead
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Colin Menter
- Department of Biology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
| |
Collapse
|
37
|
Abstract
New hominin cranial fossils highlight the early exploits of
Homo erectus
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Susan C. Antón
- Center for the Study of Human Origins, Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA
| |
Collapse
|
38
|
Yang SX, Wang FG, Xie F, Yue JP, Deng CL, Zhu RX, Petraglia MD. Technological innovations at the onset of the Mid-Pleistocene Climate Transition in high-latitude East Asia. Natl Sci Rev 2020; 8:nwaa053. [PMID: 34691547 PMCID: PMC8288396 DOI: 10.1093/nsr/nwaa053] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2019] [Revised: 03/08/2020] [Accepted: 03/17/2020] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The interplay between Pleistocene climatic variability and hominin adaptations to diverse terrestrial ecosystems is a key topic in human evolutionary studies. Early and Middle Pleistocene environmental change and its relation to hominin behavioural responses has been a subject of great interest in Africa and Europe, though little information is available for other key regions of the Old World, particularly from Eastern Asia. Here we examine key Early Pleistocene sites of the Nihewan Basin, in high-latitude northern China, dating between ∼1.4 and 1.0 million years ago (Ma). We compare stone-tool assemblages from three Early Pleistocene sites in the Nihewan Basin, including detailed assessment of stone-tool refitting sequences at the ∼1.1-Ma-old site of Cenjiawan. Increased toolmaking skills and technological innovations are evident in the Nihewan Basin at the onset of the Mid-Pleistocene Climate Transition (MPT). Examination of the lithic technology of the Nihewan sites, together with an assessment of other key Palaeolithic sites of China, indicates that toolkits show increasing diversity at the outset of the MPT and in its aftermath. The overall evidence indicates the adaptive flexibility of early hominins to ecosystem changes since the MPT, though regional abandonments are also apparent in high latitudes, likely owing to cold and oscillating environmental conditions. The view presented here sharply contrasts with traditional arguments that stone-tool technologies of China are homogeneous and continuous over the course of the Early Pleistocene.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Shi-Xia Yang
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China
| | - Fa-Gang Wang
- Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics, Shijiazhuang 050031, China
| | - Fei Xie
- Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics, Shijiazhuang 050031, China
| | - Jian-Ping Yue
- Department of History, Anhui University, Hefei 230039, China
| | - Cheng-Long Deng
- State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
| | - Ri-Xiang Zhu
- State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
| | - Michael D Petraglia
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07745, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
39
|
Hora M, Pontzer H, Wall-Scheffler CM, Sládek V. Dehydration and persistence hunting in Homo erectus. J Hum Evol 2020; 138:102682. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.102682] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2019] [Revised: 09/06/2019] [Accepted: 09/16/2019] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
|
40
|
|
41
|
White S, Soligo C, Pope M, Hillson S. Taxonomic variation in the supraorbital region of catarrhine primates. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2019; 171:198-218. [PMID: 31762014 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23975] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2019] [Revised: 10/28/2019] [Accepted: 11/04/2019] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES This study aimed to test the taxonomic utility of the catarrhine supraorbital region using 3D geometric morphometrics, with the aim of establishing its potential use in elucidating the position of more debated hominin groups. MATERIALS AND METHODS 230 3D coordinates were used to record the supraorbital morphology of two datasets: one containing 460 non-hominin catarrhine primates from species and subspecies of Gorilla, Pan, Papio, and Macaca; and the other containing 55 Pleistocene hominins from Homo, Australopithecus, and Paranthropus. Principal component analyses in tangent, form, and allometry-free shape space were used to assess differentiation of taxa, with biological distinctiveness of taxa being established using step-wise discriminant analysis with subsampling. RESULTS Results indicated that the recorded supraorbital morphology could be used to separate non-hominin catarrhine primate genera, species, and subspecies, although accuracy was found to decrease with decreasing Linnaean rank. In addition, analyses in tangent space were found to produce the highest accuracy when classifying primates of known taxonomy. Biological distinctiveness of the middle and later Homo species was comparable to or higher than that of the non-hominin primates, and relatively lower for the earlier groups of Homo. DISCUSSION This study indicates that the supraorbital region preserves taxonomic information that can be used to delineate between closely related groups, both within hominins and wider catarrhine primates. Therefore, this region may be used to provide insight when assessing the taxonomic affiliation of disputed hominin specimens.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Suzanna White
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, UK
| | | | - Matt Pope
- Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Simon Hillson
- Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK
| |
Collapse
|
42
|
Ortiz A, Bailey SE, Delgado M, Zanolli C, Demeter F, Bacon A, Nguyen TMH, Nguyen AT, Zhang Y, Harrison T, Hublin J, Skinner MM. A distinguishing feature of
Pongo
upper molars and its implications for the taxonomic identification of isolated hominid teeth from the Pleistocene of Asia. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2019; 170:595-612. [DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23928] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2019] [Revised: 06/25/2019] [Accepted: 09/05/2019] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Alejandra Ortiz
- Department of Anthropology New York University New York New York
- Institute of Human Origins, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University Tempe Arizona
| | - Shara E. Bailey
- Department of Anthropology New York University New York New York
- Department of Human Evolution Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig Germany
| | - Miguel Delgado
- División Antropología, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo Universidad Nacional de La Plata La Plata República Argentina
- Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas CONICET Buenos Aires República Argentina
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology and Collaborative Innovation Center of Genetics and Development School of Life Sciences and Human Phenome Institute, Fudan University Shanghai People's Republic of China
| | - Clément Zanolli
- Laboratoire PACEA, UMR 5199, CNRS Université de Bordeaux Bordeaux France
| | - Fabrice Demeter
- Musée de l'Homme, UMR7206 Département Homme et Environnement Paris France
- Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, Globe Institute University of Copenhagen Copenhagen Denmark
| | - Anne‐Marie Bacon
- Laboratoire BABEL, Faculté de Chirurgie Dentaire FRE 2029 CNRS, Université Paris Descartes Montrouge France
| | - Thi M. H. Nguyen
- Anthropological and Palaeoenvironmental Department The Institute of Archaeology Hanoi Vietnam
| | - Anh T. Nguyen
- Anthropological and Palaeoenvironmental Department The Institute of Archaeology Hanoi Vietnam
| | - Yingqi Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing People's Republic of China
- State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology Chinese Academy of Sciences Nanjing People's Republic of China
| | - Terry Harrison
- Department of Anthropology New York University New York New York
| | - Jean‐Jacques Hublin
- Department of Human Evolution Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig Germany
| | - Matthew M. Skinner
- Department of Human Evolution Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig Germany
- School of Anthropology and Conservation University of Kent Canterbury United Kingdom
- Evolutionary Studies Institute University of Witwatersrand Johannesburg South Africa
| |
Collapse
|
43
|
Mori T, Harvati K. Basicranial ontogeny comparison in
Pan troglodytes
and
Homo sapiens
and its use for developmental stage definition of KNM‐ER 42700. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2019; 170:579-594. [DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23926] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/06/2018] [Revised: 07/29/2019] [Accepted: 08/25/2019] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Tommaso Mori
- Palaeoanthropology, Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and PalaeoenvironmentEberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen Germany
| | - Katerina Harvati
- Palaeoanthropology, Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and PalaeoenvironmentEberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen Germany
- DFG Centre for Advanced Studies “Words, Bones, Genes, Tools: Tracking Linguistic, Cultural and Biological Trajectories of the Human Past”Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen Germany
| |
Collapse
|
44
|
Petersdorf M, Weyher AH, Kamilar JM, Dubuc C, Higham JP. Sexual selection in the Kinda baboon. J Hum Evol 2019; 135:102635. [PMID: 31421317 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.06.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2018] [Revised: 06/12/2019] [Accepted: 06/21/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
Due to wide variation in the presence and degree of expression of a diverse suite of sexually-selected traits, the tribe Papionini represents an outstanding model for understanding how variation in sexual selection pressures and mechanisms leads to trait evolution. Here, we discuss the particular value of Papio as a model genus for studies of sexual selection, emphasizing the presence of multiple mating systems, and differences in the expression of sexually-selected traits among closely-related species. We draw particular attention to the Kinda baboon (Papio kindae), a comparatively less-studied baboon species, by providing a primer to Kinda baboon morphology, genetics, physiology, and behavior. Based on observations of large group sizes, combined with low degrees of sexual dimorphism and large relative testis size relative to other baboon species, we test the hypothesis that Kinda baboons have evolved under reduced direct, and increased indirect, male-male competition. We present the first long-term data on wild Kinda baboons in Zambia. Kinda baboon females show seasonal peaks in births and reproductive receptivity, and males exhibit a queing-rather than contest-based dominance acquisition with long alpha-male tenure lengths. We finish by making a number of explicit testable predictions about Kinda baboon sexual signals and behaviors, and suggest that Kinda baboons have potential to offer new insights into the selective environments that may have been experienced during homininization.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Megan Petersdorf
- Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA.
| | - Anna H Weyher
- Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01002, USA
| | - Jason M Kamilar
- Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01002, USA
| | - Constance Dubuc
- Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA
| | - James P Higham
- Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA
| |
Collapse
|
45
|
de Ruiter DJ, Laird MF, Elliott M, Schmid P, Brophy J, Hawks J, Berger LR. Homo naledi cranial remains from the Lesedi chamber of the rising star cave system, South Africa. J Hum Evol 2019; 132:1-14. [PMID: 31203841 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.03.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2018] [Revised: 03/19/2019] [Accepted: 03/30/2019] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Excavations in the Lesedi Chamber (U.W. 102) of the Rising Star cave system from 2013 to 2015 resulted in the recovery of 131 fossils representing at least three individuals attributed to Homo naledi. Hominin fossils were recovered from three collection areas within the Lesedi Chamber. A partial skull with near complete dentition (LES1) and an associated partial skeleton were recovered from Area 102a, while craniodental remains from two other individuals were recovered from Areas 102b and 102c. Here we present detailed anatomical descriptions and metrical comparisons of the Lesedi Chamber H. naledi craniodental remains that preserve diagnostic morphology. The LES1 skull is a presumed male that is slightly larger in size, and shows greater development of ectocranial structures compared to other H. naledi specimens from the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system. Otherwise the Lesedi fossils are notably similar to the Dinaledi fossils in shape and morphology. The Lesedi fossils also preserve the delicate nasal and lacrimal bones that are otherwise unrecorded in the Dinaledi sample. Limited morphological differences between the Dinaledi and Lesedi Chamber hominin samples provides support for the hypothesis that these two assemblages share a close phyletic relationship.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Darryl J de Ruiter
- Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA; Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa.
| | - Myra F Laird
- Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
| | - Marina Elliott
- Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa.
| | - Peter Schmid
- Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa; Anthropological Institute and Museum, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland.
| | - Juliet Brophy
- Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa; Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
| | - John Hawks
- Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa; Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
| | - Lee R Berger
- Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa.
| |
Collapse
|
46
|
Marchi D, Harper C, Chirchir H, Ruff C. Relative fibular strength and locomotor behavior in KNM-WT 15000 and OH 35. J Hum Evol 2019; 131:48-60. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.02.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2018] [Revised: 02/01/2019] [Accepted: 02/21/2019] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
|
47
|
Villmoare B, Hatala KG, Jungers W. Sexual dimorphism in Homo erectus inferred from 1.5 Ma footprints near Ileret, Kenya. Sci Rep 2019; 9:7687. [PMID: 31118467 PMCID: PMC6531427 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-44060-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2018] [Accepted: 04/26/2019] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Sexual dimorphism can be one of the most important indicators of social behavior in fossil species, but the effects of time averaging, geographic variation, and differential preservation can complicate attempts to determine this measure from preserved skeletal anatomy. Here we present an alternative, using footprints from near Ileret, Kenya, to assess the sexual dimorphism of presumptive African Homo erectus at 1.5 Ma. Footprint sites have several unique advantages not typically available to fossils: a single surface can sample a population over a very brief time (in this case likely not more than a single day), and the data are geographically constrained. Further, in many cases, the samples can be much larger than those from skeletal fossil assemblages. Our results indicate that East African Homo erectus was more dimorphic than modern Homo sapiens, although less so than highly dimorphic apes, suggesting that the Ileret footprints offer a unique window into an important transitional period in hominin social behavior.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Brian Villmoare
- Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 89154-5003, Las Vegas, NV, USA.
| | - Kevin G Hatala
- Department of Biology, Chatham University, 15232, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - William Jungers
- Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, 11794-8081, New York, USA
- Association Vahatra, BP 3972, 101, Antananarivo, Madagascar
| |
Collapse
|
48
|
Complete permanent mandibular dentition of early Homo from the upper Burgi Member of the Koobi Fora Formation, Ileret, Kenya. J Hum Evol 2019; 131:152-175. [PMID: 31182200 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.03.017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2018] [Revised: 03/15/2019] [Accepted: 03/18/2019] [Indexed: 01/24/2023]
Abstract
The KNM-ER 64060 dentition derives from a horizon that most likely dates to between 2.02 and 2.03 Ma. A proximate series of postcranial bones (designated KNM-ER 64061) derives from the same siltstone unit and may be associated with the dentition, but their separation on the surface of the site leaves some room for doubt. KNM-ER 64060 is one of fewer than ten hominin specimens from the Early Pleistocene of East Africa that comprises a full or nearly complete mandibular dentition. Its taxonomic attribution is potentially significant, especially if the postcranial elements are related. At least three, and probably four hominin species, including Paranthropus boisei and Homo erectus (= H. ergaster), are known at about this time in East Africa. Other penecontemporaneous fossils have been referred to a single, highly variable species, H. habilis, or two taxa, namely H. habilis and H. rudolfensis. Although the weight of evidence supports the attribution of these specimens to two species, there is notable lack of agreement over the assignation of individual fossils. We take a conservative approach and group all such specimens under the designation "early Homo sp." for comparative purposes. KNM-ER 64060 is clearly attributable to Homo rather than Paranthropus. The preponderance of the evidence suggests that the affinities of KNM-ER 64060 are with fossils assigned to the early Homo sp. category rather than with H. erectus. This is indicated by the overall sizes of the KNM-ER 64060 canine, premolar and molar crowns, the size relationships of the P3 to P4, the relative narrowness of its premolar crowns, the cusp proportions of the M1 and especially those of the M2 and M3, and seemingly the possession of a two-rooted P4. Some of these comparisons suggest further that among the fossils comprising the early Homo sp. sample, the KNM-ER 64060 dentition exhibits greater overall similarity to specimens such as OH 7 and OH 16 that represent Homo habilis sensu stricto.
Collapse
|
49
|
DeSilva J, McNutt E, Benoit J, Zipfel B. One small step: A review of Plio‐Pleistocene hominin foot evolution. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2018; 168 Suppl 67:63-140. [DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23750] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2018] [Revised: 10/01/2018] [Accepted: 10/05/2018] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Jeremy DeSilva
- Department of AnthropologyDartmouth College Hanover New Hampshire
- Evolutionary Studies Institute and School of GeosciencesUniversity of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg South Africa
| | - Ellison McNutt
- Department of AnthropologyDartmouth College Hanover New Hampshire
| | - Julien Benoit
- Evolutionary Studies Institute and School of GeosciencesUniversity of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg South Africa
| | - Bernhard Zipfel
- Evolutionary Studies Institute and School of GeosciencesUniversity of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg South Africa
| |
Collapse
|
50
|
Rightmire GP, Margvelashvili A, Lordkipanidze D. Variation among the Dmanisi hominins: Multiple taxa or one species? AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2018; 168:481-495. [PMID: 30578552 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23759] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2018] [Revised: 11/05/2018] [Accepted: 11/06/2018] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES There is continuing controversy over the number of taxa documented by the Dmanisi hominins. Variation may reflect age and sex differences within a single population. Alternatively, two (or more) distinct species may be present. Our null hypothesis states that just one population is represented at the site. MATERIALS AND METHODS We assess the likely sources of variation in endocranial capacity, craniofacial and mandibular morphology, and the expression of characters related to aging and sex dimorphism. We use the coefficient of variation and a modified version of Levene's test for equal variances to compare trait variation at Dmanisi with that in fossil hominins and modern Homo sapiens from Africa. RESULTS Skull 5 presents a low, massive vault, and a muzzle-like lower face. Other individuals have larger brains and more globular vaults. Despite such variation, the five crania share numerous features. All of the mandibles possess marginal tubercles, mandibular tori, and a distinctive patterning of mental foramina. Relative variation at Dmanisi is comparable to that in selected reference groups. Further growth anticipated in Skull 3, age-related remodeling affecting the D2600 mandible, pathology, and sex dimorphism can account for much of the interindividual variation observed. The preponderance of evidence supports our null hypothesis. DISCUSSION Sources of the variation within ancient Homo assemblages remain poorly understood. Skull 5 is a very robust male, with a brain smaller than that of both a juvenile (Skull 3) and a probable female (Skull 2). Skull 1 has the largest brain, but cranial superstructures do not clearly mark this individual as male or female. It is likely that the Dmanisi hominins represent a single paleospecies of Homo displaying a pattern of sex dimorphism not seen in living hominids.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- G Philip Rightmire
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
| | | | | |
Collapse
|