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Postcranial evidence of late Miocene hominin bipedalism in Chad. Nature 2022; 609:94-100. [PMID: 36002567 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04901-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2020] [Accepted: 05/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Bipedal locomotion is one of the key adaptations that define the hominin clade. Evidence of bipedalism is known from postcranial remains of late Miocene hominins as early as 6 million years ago (Ma) in eastern Africa1-4. Bipedality of Sahelanthropus tchadensis was hitherto inferred about 7 Ma in central Africa (Chad) based on cranial evidence5-7. Here we present postcranial evidence of the locomotor behaviour of S. tchadensis, with new insights into bipedalism at the early stage of hominin evolutionary history. The original material was discovered at locality TM 266 of the Toros-Ménalla fossiliferous area and consists of one left femur and two, right and left, ulnae. The morphology of the femur is most parsimonious with habitual bipedality, and the ulnae preserve evidence of substantial arboreal behaviour. Taken together, these findings suggest that hominins were already bipeds at around 7 Ma but also suggest that arboreal clambering was probably a significant part of their locomotor repertoire.
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Macchiarelli R, Bergeret-Medina A, Marchi D, Wood B. Nature and relationships of Sahelanthropus tchadensis. J Hum Evol 2020; 149:102898. [PMID: 33142154 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102898] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/11/2019] [Revised: 09/30/2020] [Accepted: 09/30/2020] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
A partial left femur (TM 266-01-063) was recovered in July 2001 at Toros-Menalla, Chad, at the same fossiliferous location as the late Miocene holotype of Sahelanthropus tchadensis (the cranium TM 266-01-060-1). It was recognized as a probable primate femur in 2004 when one of the authors was undertaking a taphonomic survey of the fossil assemblages from Toros-Menalla. We are confident the TM 266 femoral shaft belongs to a hominid. It could sample a hominid hitherto unrepresented at Toros-Menalla, but a more parsimonious working hypothesis is that it belongs to S. tchadensis. The differences between TM 266 and the late Miocene Orrorin tugenensis partial femur BAR 1002'00, from Kenya, are consistent with maintaining at least a species-level distinction between S. tchadensis and O. tugenensis. The results of our preliminary functional analysis suggest the TM 266 femoral shaft belongs to an individual that was not habitually bipedal, something that should be taken into account when considering the relationships of S. tchadensis. The circumstances of its discovery should encourage researchers to check to see whether there is more postcranial evidence of S. tchadensis among the fossils recovered from Toros-Menalla.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roberto Macchiarelli
- Unité de Formation Géosciences, Université de Poitiers, 86073, Poitiers, France; Département Homme & Environnement, UMR 7194 CNRS, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, 75116, Paris, France.
| | | | - Damiano Marchi
- Department of Biology, University of Pisa, 56126, Pisa, Italy; Evolutionary Studies Institute and Centre for Excellence in PalaeoSciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits, 2050, South Africa
| | - Bernard Wood
- Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology and Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, DC, 20052, USA
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Grabowski M, Hatala KG, Jungers WL. Body mass estimates of the earliest possible hominins and implications for the last common ancestor. J Hum Evol 2018; 122:84-92. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2018.05.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2017] [Revised: 05/01/2018] [Accepted: 05/02/2018] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
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Ruff CB, Burgess ML, Squyres N, Junno JA, Trinkaus E. Lower limb articular scaling and body mass estimation in Pliocene and Pleistocene hominins. J Hum Evol 2018; 115:85-111. [PMID: 29331230 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2017.10.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2017] [Revised: 10/11/2017] [Accepted: 10/14/2017] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
Abstract
Previous attempts to estimate body mass in pre-Holocene hominins have relied on prediction equations derived from relatively limited extant samples. Here we derive new equations to predict body mass from femoral head breadth and proximal tibial plateau breadth based on a large and diverse sample of modern humans (avoiding the problems associated with using diaphyseal dimensions and/or cadaveric reference samples). In addition, an adjustment for the relatively small femoral heads of non-Homo taxa is developed based on observed differences in hip to knee joint scaling. Body mass is then estimated for 214 terminal Miocene through Pleistocene hominin specimens. Mean body masses for non-Homo taxa range between 39 and 49 kg (39-45 kg if sex-specific means are averaged), with no consistent temporal trend (6-1.85 Ma). Mean body mass increases in early Homo (2.04-1.77 Ma) to 55-59 kg, and then again dramatically in Homo erectus and later archaic middle Pleistocene Homo, to about 70 kg. The same average body mass is maintained in late Pleistocene archaic Homo and early anatomically modern humans through the early/middle Upper Paleolithic (0.024 Ma), only declining in the late Upper Paleolithic, with regional variation. Sexual dimorphism in body mass is greatest in Australopithecus afarensis (log[male/female] = 1.54), declines in Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus (log ratio 1.36), and then again in early Homo and middle and late Pleistocene archaic Homo (log ratio 1.20-1.27), although it remains somewhat elevated above that of living and middle/late Pleistocene anatomically modern humans (log ratio about 1.15).
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Affiliation(s)
- Christopher B Ruff
- Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1830 E. Monument St., Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
| | - M Loring Burgess
- Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1830 E. Monument St., Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
| | - Nicole Squyres
- Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1830 E. Monument St., Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
| | - Juho-Antti Junno
- Department of Archeology, University of Oulu, Oulu 90014, Finland
| | - Erik Trinkaus
- Department of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
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Ruff CB, Niskanen M. Introduction to special issue: Body mass estimation - Methodological issues and fossil applications. J Hum Evol 2017; 115:1-7. [PMID: 29174414 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2017.09.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2017] [Accepted: 09/23/2017] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Christopher B Ruff
- Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1830 E. Monument St., Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
| | - Markku Niskanen
- Department of Archeology, University of Oulu, Oulu 90014, Finland.
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Grabowski M, Jungers WL. Evidence of a chimpanzee-sized ancestor of humans but a gibbon-sized ancestor of apes. Nat Commun 2017; 8:880. [PMID: 29026075 PMCID: PMC5638852 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00997-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2016] [Accepted: 08/09/2017] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Body mass directly affects how an animal relates to its environment and has a wide range of biological implications. However, little is known about the mass of the last common ancestor (LCA) of humans and chimpanzees, hominids (great apes and humans), or hominoids (all apes and humans), which is needed to evaluate numerous paleobiological hypotheses at and prior to the root of our lineage. Here we use phylogenetic comparative methods and data from primates including humans, fossil hominins, and a wide sample of fossil primates including Miocene apes from Africa, Europe, and Asia to test alternative hypotheses of body mass evolution. Our results suggest, contrary to previous suggestions, that the LCA of all hominoids lived in an environment that favored a gibbon-like size, but a series of selective regime shifts, possibly due to resource availability, led to a decrease and then increase in body mass in early hominins from a chimpanzee-sized LCA.The pattern of body size evolution in hominids can provide insight into historical human ecology. Here, Grabowski and Jungers use comparative phylogenetic analysis to reconstruct the likely size of the ancestor of humans and chimpanzees and the evolutionary history of selection on body size in primates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark Grabowski
- Paleoanthropology, Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (HEP), Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
- Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York City, NY, 10024, USA.
- Department of Biosciences, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), University of Oslo, Oslo, 0316, Norway.
- Department of Anthropology, Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, 20052, USA.
| | - William L Jungers
- Association Vahatra, Antananarivo 101, BP, 3972, Madagascar
- Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794, USA
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Jungers WL, Grabowski M, Hatala KG, Richmond BG. The evolution of body size and shape in the human career. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2017; 371:rstb.2015.0247. [PMID: 27298459 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0247] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/29/2016] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Body size is a fundamental biological property of organisms, and documenting body size variation in hominin evolution is an important goal of palaeoanthropology. Estimating body mass appears deceptively simple but is laden with theoretical and pragmatic assumptions about best predictors and the most appropriate reference samples. Modern human training samples with known masses are arguably the 'best' for estimating size in early bipedal hominins such as the australopiths and all members of the genus Homo, but it is not clear if they are the most appropriate priors for reconstructing the size of the earliest putative hominins such as Orrorin and Ardipithecus The trajectory of body size evolution in the early part of the human career is reviewed here and found to be complex and nonlinear. Australopith body size varies enormously across both space and time. The pre-erectus early Homo fossil record from Africa is poor and dominated by relatively small-bodied individuals, implying that the emergence of the genus Homo is probably not linked to an increase in body size or unprecedented increases in size variation. Body size differences alone cannot explain the observed variation in hominin body shape, especially when examined in the context of small fossil hominins and pygmy modern humans.This article is part of the themed issue 'Major transitions in human evolution'.
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Affiliation(s)
- William L Jungers
- Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University School of Medicine, Stony Brook, NY 11795, USA Association Vahatra, BP 3972, Antananarivo 101, Madagascar
| | - Mark Grabowski
- Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University, 2110 G St., NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA
| | - Kevin G Hatala
- Department of Human Evolution, Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University, 2110 G St., NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA
| | - Brian G Richmond
- Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA Department of Human Evolution, Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
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Grabowski M. Bigger Brains Led to Bigger Bodies?: The Correlated Evolution of Human Brain and Body Size. CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY 2016. [DOI: 10.1086/685655] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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Body mass estimates of hominin fossils and the evolution of human body size. J Hum Evol 2015; 85:75-93. [PMID: 26094042 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.05.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 143] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2014] [Revised: 05/06/2015] [Accepted: 05/07/2015] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Body size directly influences an animal's place in the natural world, including its energy requirements, home range size, relative brain size, locomotion, diet, life history, and behavior. Thus, an understanding of the biology of extinct organisms, including species in our own lineage, requires accurate estimates of body size. Since the last major review of hominin body size based on postcranial morphology over 20 years ago, new fossils have been discovered, species attributions have been clarified, and methods improved. Here, we present the most comprehensive and thoroughly vetted set of individual fossil hominin body mass predictions to date, and estimation equations based on a large (n = 220) sample of modern humans of known body masses. We also present species averages based exclusively on fossils with reliable taxonomic attributions, estimates of species averages by sex, and a metric for levels of sexual dimorphism. Finally, we identify individual traits that appear to be the most reliable for mass estimation for each fossil species, for use when only one measurement is available for a fossil. Our results show that many early hominins were generally smaller-bodied than previously thought, an outcome likely due to larger estimates in previous studies resulting from the use of large-bodied modern human reference samples. Current evidence indicates that modern human-like large size first appeared by at least 3-3.5 Ma in some Australopithecus afarensis individuals. Our results challenge an evolutionary model arguing that body size increased from Australopithecus to early Homo. Instead, we show that there is no reliable evidence that the body size of non-erectus early Homo differed from that of australopiths, and confirm that Homo erectus evolved larger average body size than earlier hominins.
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Bleuze M. Proximal femoral diaphyseal cross-sectional geometry in Orrorin tugenensis. HOMO-JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE HUMAN BIOLOGY 2012; 63:153-66. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jchb.2012.03.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2010] [Accepted: 03/06/2012] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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Sládek V, Berner M, Galeta P, Friedl L, Kudrnová Š. Technical note: The effect of midshaft location on the error ranges of femoral and tibial cross-sectional parameters. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2009; 141:325-32. [DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21153] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
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Lovejoy CO, Suwa G, Simpson SW, Matternes JH, White TD. The Great Divides: Ardipithecus ramidus Reveals the Postcrania of Our Last Common Ancestors with African Apes. Science 2009. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1175833] [Citation(s) in RCA: 193] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
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Richmond BG, Jungers WL. Orrorin tugenensis femoral morphology and the evolution of hominin bipedalism. Science 2008; 319:1662-5. [PMID: 18356526 DOI: 10.1126/science.1154197] [Citation(s) in RCA: 124] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Abstract
Bipedalism is a key human adaptation and a defining feature of the hominin clade. Fossil femora discovered in Kenya and attributed to Orrorin tugenensis, at 6 million years ago, purportedly provide the earliest postcranial evidence of hominin bipedalism, but their functional and phylogenetic affinities are controversial. We show that the O. tugenensis femur differs from those of apes and Homo and most strongly resembles those of Australopithecus and Paranthropus, indicating that O. tugenensis was bipedal but is not more closely related to Homo than to Australopithecus. Femoral morphology indicates that O. tugenensis shared distinctive hip biomechanics with australopiths, suggesting that this complex evolved early in human evolution and persisted for almost 4 million years until modifications of the hip appeared in the late Pliocene in early Homo.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian G Richmond
- Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, 2110 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA.
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Crompton RH, Vereecke EE, Thorpe SKS. Locomotion and posture from the common hominoid ancestor to fully modern hominins, with special reference to the last common panin/hominin ancestor. J Anat 2008; 212:501-43. [PMID: 18380868 PMCID: PMC2409101 DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7580.2008.00870.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 108] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/07/2008] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Based on our knowledge of locomotor biomechanics and ecology we predict the locomotion and posture of the last common ancestors of (a) great and lesser apes and their close fossil relatives (hominoids); (b) chimpanzees, bonobos and modern humans (hominines); and (c) modern humans and their fossil relatives (hominins). We evaluate our propositions against the fossil record in the context of a broader review of evolution of the locomotor system from the earliest hominoids of modern aspect (crown hominoids) to early modern Homo sapiens. While some early East African stem hominoids were pronograde, it appears that the adaptations which best characterize the crown hominoids are orthogrady and an ability to abduct the arm above the shoulder - rather than, as is often thought, manual suspension sensu stricto. At 7-9 Ma (not much earlier than the likely 4-8 Ma divergence date for panins and hominins, see Bradley, 2008) there were crown hominoids in southern Europe which were adapted to moving in an orthograde posture, supported primarily on the hindlimb, in an arboreal, and possibly for Oreopithecus, a terrestrial context. By 7 Ma, Sahelanthropus provides evidence of a Central African hominin, panin or possibly gorilline adapted to orthogrady, and both orthogrady and habitually highly extended postures of the hip are evident in the arboreal East African protohominin Orrorin at 6 Ma. If the traditional idea that hominins passed through a terrestrial 'knuckle-walking' phase is correct, not only does it have to be explained how a quadrupedal gait typified by flexed postures of the hindlimb could have preadapted the body for the hominin acquisition of straight-legged erect bipedality, but we would have to accept a transition from stem-hominoid pronogrady to crown hominoid orthogrady, back again to pronogrady in the African apes and then back to orthogrady in hominins. Hand-assisted arboreal bipedality, which is part of a continuum of orthograde behaviours, is used by modern orangutans to forage among the small branches at the periphery of trees where the core hominoid dietary resource, ripe fruit, is most often to be found. Derivation of habitual terrestrial bipedality from arboreal hand-assisted bipedality requires fewer transitions, and is also kinematically and kinetically more parsimonious.
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Affiliation(s)
- R H Crompton
- School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Liverpool, Sherrington Buildings, Ashton Street, Liverpool L69 3GE, UK.
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