Small scattered fragments do not a dwarf make: biological and archaeological data indicate that prehistoric inhabitants of Palau were normal sized

Macrodont management

Macrodontia is an uncommon dental anomaly that can present in both primary and permanent dentition. It has often been reported to occur concomitantly with other dental anomalies and has also been an established clinical characteristic of numerous systemic conditions and syndromes. The following case reports illustrate the challenges of managing macrodont teeth in view of the various treatment options available, as well as the multiple factors that tend to influence each case individually.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

This article highlights the importance of early referral and a multidisciplinary approach to treating patients with dental anomalies.

The naming of new species in hominin evolution: A radical proposal--A temporary cessation in assigning new names

The species problem is one of the most complex and enduring problems plaguing evolutionary biology in general and human paleontology in particular. In the past 50 years, conceptions of species have diverged and speciated analogous to the present, largely accepted view of the hominin phylogeny. Conventional wisdom supports a "bushy" hominin phylogeny. However, chaos reigns because there is no agreed-upon methodology used to delimit species taxa in paleontology. This dispute is complicated by the ever-present intraspecific and interspecific morphological variation, which is itself exacerbated by other types of variation, including behavioral, ecological, geographical and temporal. When two or more of these forms of variation are used to delimit "new" extant or fossil species, any decision arrived at might be construed as arbitrary. This paper proposes that temporary cessation in assigning new names should be considered based on several critical problems: (1) the explosion of conceptions of a "species" arising from disagreements regarding species definitions, (2) differing interpretations of population variation, which lead to difficulty in interpreting hybridization in nature, leading in turn to the underestimation or overestimation of species, (3) the problem of modes of speciation being confounded with criteria used to distinguish among species, e.g., punctuated equilibrium posits high-speciation rates, and (4) the most common of all human traits, vanity.

Evolution of the human pygmy phenotype

Small human body size, or the 'pygmy' phenotype, is characteristic of certain African, Southeast Asian and South American populations. The convergent evolution of this phenotype, and its strong association with tropical rainforests, have motivated adaptive hypotheses that stress the advantages of small size for coping with food limitation, warm, humid conditions and dense forest undergrowth. Most recently, a life-history model has been used to suggest that the human pygmy phenotype is a consequence of early growth cessation that evolved to facilitate early reproductive onset amid conditions of high adult mortality. As we discuss here, these adaptive scenarios are not mutually exclusive and should be evaluated in consort. Findings from this area of research are expected to inform interpretations of diversity in the hominin fossil record, including the purported small-bodied species Homo floresiensis.