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Establishing species identity in wildlife forensics and anthropology is pre-requisite fo prosecution of the legal cases and successful implementation of the regional laws and acts. However, identifying osteological collection, e.g., bones, skulls and skeleton of phylogenetically closely related species is a daunting task due to the taxonomic similarities and shared attributes among the species. In this context, fragmented samples like bones, tooth, and skulls are crucial source of evidences for undertaking any forensic assignments particularly in cases of mass fatality scenario. The present study established various metric and non-metric parameters among the skulls of human and non-human primates indigenous to India. The metric parameters and the linear measurements of teeth were dimorphic and found to be used as potential keys for species identification. The inter-canine distance of both the arches varied significantly among the species. In the non-metric parameters, the postorbital constriction and the supra-orbital ridge anatomy was found to be the best distinguishing factor. This study has introduced a baseline reference dataset of paired cranio-dental parameters to distinguish between the skulls of human and non-human primates.

Although the diminutive Homo floresiensis has been known for a decade, its phylogenetic status remains highly contentious. A broad range of potential explanations for the evolution of this species has been explored. One view is that H. floresiensis is derived from Asian Homo erectus that arrived on Flores and subsequently evolved a smaller body size, perhaps to survive the constrained resources they faced in a new island environment. Fossil remains of H. erectus, well known from Java, have not yet been discovered on Flores. The second hypothesis is that H. floresiensis is directly descended from an early Homo lineage with roots in Africa, such as Homo habilis; the third is that it is Homo sapiens with pathology. We use parsimony and Bayesian phylogenetic methods to test these hypotheses. Our phylogenetic data build upon those characters previously presented in support of these hypotheses by broadening the range of traits to include the crania, mandibles, dentition, and postcrania of Homo and Australopithecus. The new data and analyses support the hypothesis that H. floresiensis is an early Homo lineage: H. floresiensis is sister either to H. habilis alone or to a clade consisting of at least H. habilis, H. erectus, Homo ergaster, and H. sapiens. A close phylogenetic relationship between H. floresiensis and H. erectus or H. sapiens can be rejected; furthermore, most of the traits separating H. floresiensis from H. sapiens are not readily attributable to pathology (e.g., Down syndrome). The results suggest H. floresiensis is a long-surviving relict of an early (>1.75 Ma) hominin lineage and a hitherto unknown migration out of Africa, and not a recent derivative of either H. erectus or H. sapiens.

Sexual dimorphism of the craniodental morphology of the Eurasian otter in South Korea was studied with geometric morphometrics. 29 adult skulls (15 males and 14 females) were used. Images of the dorsal and ventral view of the cranium and right lateral view of the mandible were taken and then digitized, and measurements were taken on the right side. Results showed that size difference between males and females was significant. Correlations between the size and shape variations have not been observed in this study. The bivariate plots with centroid size showed size dimorphism between males and females with some overlapping. Most relative warp (RW) scores were not significantly different between males and females. We observed only RW2 for dorsal and ventral view of the skull, and only RW1 for mandible was significantly different between the sexes. Shape dimorphisms were revealed at the postorbital constriction, temporal-mandibular joint, coronoid process, mandibular condyle and angular process of the skull. Based on our study, sexual dimorphism exists in Eurasian otter from the South Korean population in terms of both the size and shape. Furthermore, the degree of size dimorphism is greater than shape dimorphism.

To investigate the morphological variation in an island population of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), we measured 25 cranial and 24 dental characters for 225 specimens (137 males and 88 females) from Hokkaido Island, Japan. A Bayesian principal component analysis found only small differences among three groups identified genetically in previous studies. Concretely, analyses of variance and post-hoc tests detected clear differences in two functionally important measurements: postorbital constriction and upper fourth premolar length. In the postorbital constriction, relating to size of the temporal muscle, a difference with a gradient of increase from west to east on Hokkaido Island was found in both sexes. In the upper fourth premolar length, relating to body size, a difference between the Southern and Central groups was found in both sexes. Additionally, in differences in four measurements of skull width, skull height, mastoid width, and occipital condyle width, relating to braincase, were detected...

Papionin monkey fossils are common in the Plio-Pleistocene aged karst cave deposits northwest of Johannesburg in South Africa. These deposits have yielded important primate and other vertebrate fauna since their discovery in the early part of the 20th century. In this article, we describe new primate cranial and dental specimens from excavations at the site of Cooper's D in the Sterkfontein Valley that date to around 1.5 million years ago. Unlike other localities in southern Africa, most of the new fossils are referred to Theropithecus oswaldi oswaldi, an extinct gramnivorous monkey related to the living gelada. Diagnostic features of T. o. oswaldi crania and teeth include large, thickly enameled molars with tall, columnar cusps, and high molar relief, an upright mandibular ramus, postorbital constriction, and anterior fusion of temporal lines. Also present in the new sample are teeth referred to Papio sp., which show low crowned bunodont molars, and a number of indeterminate papionin teeth and skull fragments. The presence of T. o. oswaldi at Cooper's D extends the list of known localities where the taxon is found, and may indicate the presence of an open, grassland environment in the area during the early Pleistocene. The abundance of theropith fossils at Cooper's suggests that Papio was not consistently the most common papionin in southern Africa over the past three million years.

Since the 1984 discovery of the Nariokotome Homo erectus/Homo ergaster skeleton, it has been almost axiomatic that the emergence of Homo (sensu stricto) was characterized by an increase in body size to the modern human condition and an autapomorphic shift in body proportions to those found today. This was linked to a behavioral shift toward more intensive carnivory and wider ranging in the genus Homo. Recent fossil discoveries and reanalysis of the Nariokotome skeleton suggest a more complex evolutionary pattern. While early Homo tend to be larger than Australopithecus/Paranthropus, they were shorter on average than people today. Reanalysis of the Nariokotome pelvis along with the discovery of additional early and middle Pleistocene pelves indicate that a narrow bi-iliac (pelvic) breadth is an autapomorphy specific to Homo sapiens. Likewise, it appears that at least some early Homo (even those referred to H. ergaster/H. erectus) were characterized by higher humero-femoral indices than the H. sapiens avera...

Recent fossil and archaeological finds have complicated our interpretation of the origin and early evolution of genus Homo. Using an integrated data set from the fossil record and contemporary human and nonhuman primate biology, we provide a fresh perspective on three important shifts in human evolutionary history: (1) the emergence of Homo, (2) the transition between non-erectus early Homo and Homo erectus, and (3) the appearance of regional variation in H. erectus. The shift from Australopithecus to Homo was marked by body and brain size increases, a dietary shift, and an increase in total daily energy expenditure. These shifts became more pronounced in H. erectus, but the transformation was not as radical as previously envisioned. Many aspects of the human life history package, including reduced dimorphism, likely occured later in evolution. The extant data suggest that the origin and evolution of Homo was characterized by a positive feedback loop that drove life history evolution. Critical to this pro...

The origin of the genus Homo in Africa signals the beginning of the shift from increasingly bipedal apes to primitive, large-brained, stone tool-making, meat-eaters that traveled far and wide. This early part of the human genus is represented by three species: Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, and Homo erectus. H. habilis is known for retaining primitive features that link it to australopiths and for being the first stone tool makers. Little is known about H. rudolfensis except that it had a relatively large brain and large teeth compared to H. habilis and that it overlapped in time and space with other early Homo. Our understanding of the paleobiology and evolution of the larger-brained H. erectus is enhanced due to its rich fossil record. H. erectus was the first obligate, fully committed biped, and with a body adapted for modern striding locomotion, it was also the first in the human lineage to disperse outside of Africa. The early members of the genus Homo are the first to tip the scale from the more apish side of our evolutionary history toward the more human one.

Our species Homo sapiens has never received a satisfactory morphological definition. Deriving partly from Linnaeus's exhortation simply to "know thyself," and partly from the insistence by advocates of the Evolutionary Synthesis in the mid-20th Century that species are constantly transforming ephemera that by definition cannot be pinned down by morphology, this unfortunate situation has led to huge uncertainty over which hominid fossils ought to be included in H. sapiens, and even over which of them should be qualified as "archaic" or as "anatomically modern," a debate that is an oddity in the broader context of paleontology. Here, we propose a suite of features that seems to characterize all H. sapiens alive today, and we review the fossil evidence in light of those features, paying particular attention to the bipartite brow and the "chin" as examples of how, given the continuum from developmentally regulated genes to adult morphology, we might consider features preserved in fossil specimens in a comparative analysis that includes extant taxa. We also suggest that this perspective on the origination of novelty, which has gained a substantial foothold in the general field of evolutionary developmental biology, has an intellectual place in paleoanthropology and hominid systematics, including in defining our species, H. sapiens. Beginning solely with the distinctive living species reveals a startling variety in morphologies among late middle and late Pleistocene hominids, none of which can be plausibly attributed to H. sapiens/H. neanderthalensis admixture. Allowing for a slightly greater envelope of variation than exists today, basic "modern" morphology seems to have appeared significantly earlier in time than the first stirrings of the modern symbolic cognitive system.

Definition of the genus Homo is almost as fraught as the definition of Homo sapiens. We look at the evidence for “early Homo,” finding little morphological basis for extending our genus to any of the ∼2.5–1.6-myr-old fossil forms assigned to “early Homo” or Homo habilis/rudolfensis. We also point to heterogeneity among “early African Homo erectus,” and the lack of apomorphies linking these fossils to the Asian Homo erectus group, a cohesive regional clade that shows some internal variation, including brain size increase over time. The first truly cosmopolitan Homo species is Homo heidelbergensis, known from Africa, Europe, and China following 600 kyr ago. One species sympatric with it included the >500-kyr-old Sima de los Huesos fossils from Spain, clearly distinct from Homo heidelbergensis and the oldest hominids assignable to the clade additionally containing Homo neanderthalensis. This clade also shows evidence of brain size expansion with time; but although Homo neanderthalensis had a large brain, it left no unequivocal evidence of the symbolic consciousness that makes our species unique. Homo sapiens clearly originated in Africa, where it existed as a physical entity before it began (also in that continent) to show the first stirrings of symbolism. Most likely, the biological underpinnings of symbolic consciousness were exaptively acquired in the radical developmental reorganization that gave rise to the highly characteristic osteological structure of Homo sapiens, but lay fallow for tens of thousands of years before being “discovered” by a cultural stimulus, plausibly the invention of language.

The last few decades have seen an explosion of knowledge about the time and place of origin of our species, Homo sapiens. New fossils, more sites, better dates, modern and fossil DNA, and scores of analyses have mostly disproved the multiregional model of human evolution. By and large, the evidence generally supports some version of the out-of-Africa model, according to which humans first evolved in Africa at least 200,000 years ago and then migrated to other parts of the world. Remaining debates about human origins primarily address if and how much hybridization occurred between modern humans and taxa of archaic Homo such as H. neanderthalensis.

Species are historically differentiated entities that, osteologically, may be differentiated to inconveniently varying extents. Living Homo sapiens is a distinctive morphological entity that is easily distinguished in both cranial and postcranial morphology from all other living hominoids and from the vast majority of its fossil relatives. In this contribution, we offer several apparent cranial apomorphies of the living species, while recognizing that it is reasonable to expect some degree of overlap in the ranges of variation of individual characters among closely related species such as those within the genus Homo. No one aspect of morphological detail may be considered totally diagnostic within very close-knit groups of this sort or, conversely, be regarded as blurring the identities of their components. Overlap in morphological detail may even be expected in cases where striking Gestalt differences exist between closely related species due to major developmental reorganization. As a result, while the morphological and, by extension, historical distinction between such highly differentiated species pairs as Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens is effectively unequivocal, in a nod to the intrinsic untidiness of biology the hominid fossil record does offer some instances that are much more difficult to interpret. In such cases, most, but not all, of the cranial apomorphies of living Homo sapiens, are present in individual fossil specimens or apparent populations. This is true, for example, of a set of variably dated and archeologically associated, as well as mostly incomplete, South African fossils (for example, Border Cave, Boskop, Fish Hoek, and most Klasies River Mouth specimens). These specimens very closely resemble living Homo sapiens in preserved overall cranial structure, but most conspicuously lack bipartite brows and fully developed human chin configurations. Whatever resolutions hominid systematists may reach in such cases, it is clear that to resort reflexively to such pernicious if convenient devices as “archaic Homo sapiens” only obscures any potential signals of systematic diversity in what is increasingly evidently a highly complex late Pleistocene hominid record.

Various diagnoses of the genus Homo have been proposed, including behavioral traits such as tool-making, carnivory, and hunting. However, tool-making and carnivory almost certainly began more than 2.6 million years ago, in prehuman phases of our evolution, while reliably distinguishing hunting from scavenging in the early archeological record is problematic. Here we concentrate on diagnosable morphological traits such as endocranial/brain size (relative and absolute), body shape, and cranial and dental features, allowing the recognition of a minimum of nine species of the genus Homo: H. habilis, H. rudolfensis, H. erectus, H. naledi, H. floresiensis, H. antecessor, H. heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis, and H. sapiens.

The middle meningeal vascular network leaves its traces on the endocranial surface because of the tight relationship between neurocranial development and brain growth. Analysing the endocast of fossil specimens, it is therefore possible to describe the morphology of these structures, leading inferences on the cerebral physiology and metabolism in extinct human groups. In this paper, general features of the meningeal vascular traces are described for specimens included in the Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens hypodigms. The complexity of the arterial network is quantified by its fractal dimension, calculated through the box-counting method. Modern humans show significant differences from the other two taxa because of the anterior vascular dominance and the larger fractal dimension. Neither the fractal dimension nor the anterior development are merely associated with cranial size increase. Considering the differences between Neanderthals and modern humans, these results may be interpreted in terms of phylogeny, cerebral functions, or cranial structural network.

Although the debate rages on over whether the Neanderthals merit their own species status or should be viewed as an odd variant of Homo sapiens, recent evidence has accumulated that overwhelmingly supports the former interpretation. Among this evidence is a recent full-body skeletal reconstruction that not only highlights the extreme differences between the highly apomorphic H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis in the construction of the thorax and pelvic girdle, but strongly suggests significant gait differences between the two species that add to the probability that the two kinds of hominid would not have recognized each other as breeding partners. This is hardly surprising since the two species possessed a relatively remote common ancestry, and it is indeed suggested here that Homo neanderthalensis was merely one species embedded within a diverse and endemic middle Pleistocene European hominid radiation. Clearly more than one lineage of hominids simultaneously occupied Europe during the middle Pleistocene.

Controversies in paleoanthropology wax and wane, but substantial interest is currently focused on Homo erectus. This species has traditionally been regarded as a member in good standing of the human family, where it is placed as an evolutionary intermediate between earlier Homo habilis and later Homo sapiens. Recently, however, some workers have questioned whether the species exists at all. If its populations have been transformed slowly toward the modern condition, and if continuity with living people can be demonstrated in many geographic regions, then any separation of Homo erectus from Homo sapiens must be largely arbitrary. In that case, only one species should be recognized and this slowly changing lineage would have to be called Homo sapiens. Other paleontologists adopt a different view, arguing that Homo erectus is not only anatomically distinctive but also restricted in its geographic distribution. They claim that the fossils from Java and China are so specialized in appearance that they cannot lie in the mainstream of human evolution. Homo erectus, strictly defined as limited to the Far East, probably went extinct without issue. If so, more modern populations must have evolved from another source, perhaps one outside of Asia altogether.

Anthropologists have long recognized the existence among modern humans of geographical variations in body form that parallel climatic gradients, part of more general zoological phenomena commonly referred to as Bergmann's or Allen's “Rules”. These observations have rarely been applied to earlier hominids, in part because fossil skeletons usually are so incomplete that it is difficult to reconstruct body morphology accurately. However, within the past two decades two early hominids have been discovered that preserve enough of the skeleton to allow confident assessment of their body size and shape. Comparison of these specimens—the Australopithecus afarensis A.L. 288-1 (“Lucy”) and the Homo erectus KNM-WT 15000—with others that are less complete make it evident that the evolution of Homo erectus was accompanied by not only a marked increase in body size, but also a similarly dramatic increase in the linearity of body form. That is, relative to their heights, small australopithecines had very broad bodies, whereas large early Homo had narrow bodies. This difference in body form cannot be explained on the basis of obstetric or biomechanical factors, but is consistent with thermoregulatory constraints on body shape. Specifically, to maintain the same ratio of body surface area to body mass, which is an important thermoregulatory mechanism, increases in height should be accompanied by no change in body breadth, which is exactly what is seen in comparisons of A.L. 288-1 and KNM-WT 15000. Conversely, Neandertals living in colder climates had much wider bodies, which are adaptive for heat retention. Differences in limb length proportions between fossil hominids are also consistent with thermoregulatory principles and the geographic variation observed among modern humans. Climatic adaptation during hominid evolution may have wide-ranging implications, not only with regard to interpreting body morphology, but also in relation to ecological scenarios, population movements, and the evolution of the brain.

More than 70 sites have yielded human fossils in China. They are attributed to Homo sapiens erectus and Homo sapiens sapiens. The earliest one is possibly about 1.7 Ma. A series of common morphological features, including shovel-shaped incisors and flatness of the face, characterize them. There is a morphological mosaic between H. s. erectus and H. s. sapiens in China. The existence of common features and the morphological mosaic suggest continuity of human evolution in China. That there are a few features which are more commonly seen in the Neanderthal lineage, occurring in a few Chinese fossil skulls, probably suggests gene flow between China and the West. Based on them, in 1998 I proposed an hypothesis—continuity with hybridization—for human evolution in China. The hypothesis is supported by paleolithic archeology, and it supports the multiregional evolution hypothesis of modern human origins. The anatomically modern humans of East Asia originated most probably in China. Although some nonhuman anthropoid primates of China—Gigantopithecus, Sivapithecus, Ramapithecus and Lufengpithecus—have been suggested as the direct ancestors of human beings, the discovery of more specimens and further studies do not support these suggestions. Therefore, it is most probable that the transition between apes and humans did not occur in China.

Landmark based morphometrics was used to investigate sexual dimorphism and interspecific differentiation in the mustelids Martes foina and M. martes, which are typical sexual size dimorphic species. Analyses were run on 192 specimens of M. foina and 36 specimens of M. martes from central and northern Italy, by recording 19 and 40 landmarks on the dorsal skull and on the palate, respectively. Results indicate that both size and shape are important components of skull dimorphism in males and females of the two species. The skull of the stone marten males is larger, has a narrower postorbital constriction and larger molars than in females. These differences and the partial least square analysis run on shape variable and stomach contents of one sample suggest that stone marten males are better adapted to catch and kill live prey, while females seem to prey upon easier‐to‐catch food. Shape features involved in sexual dimorphism are similar to those involved in interspecific variation, but the two spec...

One of the major trends in primate evolution generally and hominid evolution in particular, is cranio-facial contraction accompanied by an increase in cranial capacity. Landmark-based morphometric methods are applied to adult skulls of great apes ( Gorilla , Pan ), australopithecines ( Australopithecus and Paranthropus ), and humans ( Homo eragster , erectus , neanderthalensis , and sapiens ). Morphological changes quantified by vector fields (Procrustes methods) indicate that these skull plans are characterized by distinctive degrees of cranio-facial contraction. These suggest the existence of three discrete skull organization plans: "great ape", "australopithecine" and " Homo ". This paper focuses on the " Homo " skull bauplan and discusses the possible relationships between greatly increased cranial capacity and preeclampsia. The earliest species of the human lineage exhibit less cranio-facial contraction and smaller cranial capacity than Homo neanderthalensis and modern Homo sapiens . Neandertalization introduces a posterior elongation of the skull and leads to a large increase in cranial capacity in the last Neandertals, with values as large as in present-day H. sapiens . Consequently, a new biological hypothesis is proposed to account for the unexplained disappearance of H. neanderthalensis some 30 000 years ago related to the possible appearance of preeclampsia as a factor affecting the survival of the species.

Archaic Homo refers to the human populations or species that were chronologically and anatomically intermediate between Homo erectus and modern Homo sapiens. Archaic Homo can be further subdivided into two chronological groupings, Early and Late Archaics. Anatomically, Archaic Homo exhibit larger braincases than H. erectus as well as greater body mass, among other features. Archaic Homo had controlled and regular use of fire and colonized temperate regions of Eurasia for the first time. In some regions, Archaic Homo populations appear to have directly contributed to the ancestry of modern humans, while the evidence for this in other regions is limited. The overall pattern of evolutionary relationships among Archaic Homo, as elucidated by the available fossil and paleogenomic evidence, indicates that not all archaics and modern humans were reproductively isolated from each other.

Two fossil hominid crania from Yunxian were found in 1989 and 1990 respectively, and were attributed toHomo eretus. For the purpose of examining the “Homo erectus features” in Yunxian crania, comparisons with crania from Zhoukoudian are made in this paper. The features examined include supraobital tori, occipital torus, angle between the occipital and nuchal planes, postorbital constriction, skull breadth conditions, lowness of skull, and frontal flatness and receding. Results show that the “Homo erectus features” are doubtful owing to damage to and distortion of Yunxian crania. Morphologically, the crania from Yunxian are likely ofHomo sapiens.

All species are fated either to die out or to evolve into something else. All except humans, that is

The temporal bone discovered by Bœuf within the fauna from the Petit-Puymoyen site is studied. It is attributed to an individual whose age is estimated at 2/4 years and that possesses a mastoid fissure. This characteristic, constant in Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and absent in Homo sapiens sapiens, allows to conclude that it is more likely that this individual be allocated to the Neanderthal lineage rather than to the anatomically modern human one.

An increasing number of claims place hominids outside Africa and deep in Southeast Asia at about the same time that Homo erectus first appears in Africa. The most complete of the early specimens is the partial child's calvaria from Mojokerto (Perning I), Java, Indonesia. Discovered in 1936, the child has been assigned to Australopithecus and multiple species of Homo, including H. modjokertensis, and given developmental ages ranging from 1–8 years. This study systematically assesses Mojokerto relative to modern human and fossil hominid growth series and relative to adult fossil hominids. Cranial base and vault comparisons between Mojokerto and H. sapiens sapiens (Hss) (n = 56), Neandertal (n = 4), and H. erectus (n = 4) juveniles suggest a developmental age range between 4 and 6 years. This range is based in part on new standards for assessing the relative development of the glenoid fossa. Regression analyses of vault arcs and chords indicate that H. erectus juveniles have more rounded frontals and less angulated occipitals than their adult counterparts, whereas Hss juveniles do not show these differences relative to adults. The growth of the cranial superstructures and face appear critical to creating differences in vault contours between H. erectus and Hss. In comparison with adult H. erectus and early Homo (n = 27) and adult Hss (n = 179), the Mojokerto child is best considered a juvenile H. erectus on the basis of synapomorphies of the cranial vault, particularly a metopic eminence and occipital torus, as well as a suite of characters that describe but do not define H. erectus, including obelion depression, supratoral gutter, postorbital constriction, mastoid fissure, lack of sphenoid contribution to glenoid fossa, and length and breadth ratios of the temporomandibular joint. Mojokerto is similar to other juvenile H. erectus in the degree of development of its cranial superstructures and its vault contours relative to adult Indonesian specimens. The synapomorphies which Mojokerto shares with H. erectus are often considered autapomorphies of Asian H. erectus and confirm the early establishment and long-term continuity of the Asian H. erectus bauplan. This continuity does not, however, necessarily reflect on the pattern of origin of modern humans in the region. Am J Phys Anthropol 102:497–514, 1997. © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

A partial cranium of a very large anthracothere was unearthed during a palaeontological excavation at Saint-Antoine-de-Ficalba (Lot-et-Garonne, France; Early Miocene, ~18–17.0 Ma). The new material, referred to as Brachyodus onoideus (Gervais, 1859), documents the cranial features of this species, so far mainly known by dental and postcranial remains. The preserved part of the skull roughly coincides with the neurocranium and is remarkable for the dorsally-protruding orbits, the importance of the postorbital constriction, the small volume of the braincase, and the gigantic size of the occipital condyle relative to the other elements of the neurocranium. A very careful dissection of the left auditory region allowed extraction of the left petrosal bone and provides the first description of a petrosal for Brachyodus. The morphology of the petrosal is strikingly similar to that of extant hippos with: (1) a ventral basicapsular groove, (2) a sharp crista petrosa, (3) a wide prefacial commissure fossa, (4) a reduced mastoid, and (5) an hyperinflated tegmen tympani. Both the disposition of the orifices of the head and the petrosal morphology support a specialization of Brachyodus onoideus to an amphibious lifestyle and to potential underwater directional hearing.

Homo erectus sensu lato (s.l.) is a key species in the hominin fossil record for the study of human evolution, being one of the first species discovered and perhaps the most documented, but also because of its long temporal range and having dispersed out of Africa earlier than any other human species. Here I test two proposed autapomorphic traits of H. erectus, namely the increased thickness of the upper cranial vault and parasagittal keeling. The definition of these two anatomical features and their expression and variation among hominids are discussed. The results of this study indicate that the upper vault in Asian H. erectus is not absolutely thicker compared with fossil anatomically modern Homo sapiens, whereas Broken Hill and Petralona have values above the range of variation of H. erectus. Moreover, this anatomical region in Asian H. erectus is not significantly thicker compared with Pan paniscus. In addition, these results demonstrate that cranial vault thickness should not be used to make hypotheses regarding sexual attribution of fossil hominin specimens. I also show that the relation between relief on the external surface of the upper vault, parasagittal keeling and bregmatic eminence, and bone thickness is complex. In this context, the autapomorphic status of the two analysed traits in H. erectus may be rejected. Nevertheless, different patterns in the distribution of bone thickness on the upper vault were identified. Some individual variations are visible, but specificities are observable in samples of different species. The pattern of bone thickness distribution observed in Asian H. erectus, P. paniscus, possibly australopiths, and early Homo or Homo ergaster/erectus appears to be shared by these different species and would be a plesiomorphic trait among hominids. In contrast, two apomorphic states for this feature were identified for Neandertals and H. sapiens.

This paper focuses on morphological features which are suggested to be uniquely derived character states for East AsianHomo erectus. The assumed restricted occurrence of these features led to the far-reaching conclusion that AsianH. erectus might represent a different species from the African hominids generally attributed to it. In order to demonstrate whether these traits are in fact largely restricted to Asianerectus, we studied most of the African and Asianerectus fossils and representatives ofHomo habilis, Australopithecus africanus, and archaicHomo sapiens. To further contribute to the current assessment of these features, this study includes a large sample and variety of hominids, examines the extant variation of the character states and critically evaluates the definition of each characteristic. Our results show that a continuous variation can be assumed for all of the features studied and that simple determinations as discrete character states might lead to rather artificial lists of presence or absence. Moreover, it is shown that all of these features also occur in the African specimens attributed toerectus, and most of them even inH. habilis andA. africanus as well as in African and Asian archaicH. sapiens. Therefore, it appears rather unlikely that these features can continue to be considered as Asianerectus autapomorphies.

An investigation was carried out on 12 character states often said to be autapomorphic of the neurocranium of H. erectus . The African pongids were used as the outgroup. The majority of these traits were qualitative (i.e., present or absent) and could thus be treated using the classic Hennigian method. Of these, none was autapomorphic in H. erectus . However, the occipital torus was apomorphic for H. erectus and anatomically modern H. sapiens ; the neandertals and the “ante-neandertals” appear to demonstrate an autapomorphic pattern in their occipital torus. The remainder of the traits were quantitative; a Student's t with a level of significance of 0·05 was used as the point of discrimination between primitive and derived character states, although problems with this technique were noted. Of these metric character states, none was autapomorphic in H. erectus . However, one included metric trait, increased cranial vault thickness, was found to show significant statistical discrimination of H. erectus from the outgroups, the australopithecines and anatomically modern Homo sapiens . However, thickened cranial vault bone was also found in the neandertals and in most other non-modern hominids although it was generally less in these groups relative to H. erectus . The presence of thickened vault bone in these groups prevents the trait from being a H. erectus autapomorph. It was hypothesized here that cranial thickness in hominoids occurs in two ways. Increased superior vault thickness is derived for H. erectus and most other non-modern hominids. Thickness of the inferior cranium, on the other hand, reflects retained pneumatodiploic bone and is symplesiomorphic, being shared by the outgroups, the australopithecines and H. erectus . Inferior vault expansion has decreased (relative to H. erectus , the australopithecines and the outgroups) in the neandertals and most other non-modern hominids. Several hypotheses concerning the relationship of H. erectus to other hominids were tested. Among the conclusions are that on the basis of the included traits H. erectus , as presently defined and using the methodology of phylogenetic systematics, cannot be considered a valid species. It was argued, however, that the challenge to the taxon H. erectus rests less with the biological reality of such a group than with the present taxonomic configuration of middle and early upper Pleistocene hominids. It was also suggested that the neandertals, who appear to have a number of autapomorphs, should not be included within the modern species, Homo sapiens .

“A large fl ange of the frontal descends behind the orbits [of Rooneyia]. Judged from the postorbital constriction of the skull, part of the major mass of the temporalis muscle extended slightly anteriorly above the orbits. In the case of Rooneyia the orbital partition, perhaps the homologue of that part of the postorbital funnel in Tarsius, platyrrhines and catarrhines, appears to be the bony wall which kept the muscles from intruding into the orbit. Possibly this partition is the initial adaptation responsible for the role of protecting the eyeballs and associated structures from the contraction of the temporalis.” Szalay (1976:349).

The reconstruction and anatomy of a crushed hominid cranium excavated from an Acheulean horizon at Lake Ndutu, Tanzania, is here described. It is assigned to archaicHomo sapiens on the basis of its expanded parietal and occipital regions of the brain. ArchaicH. sapiens apparently evolved from an African species usually classified asHomo erectus but here argued to be a separate species,Homo leakeyi. It is further argued thatHomo leakeyi evolved fromHomo habilis about 1·5 million years ago and continued the Acheulean handaxe tradition that began withH. habilis. It is suggested thatHomo erectus was a species that originated in Asia east of Bangladesh, possibly from aHomo habilis population isolated in that part of the world. Indications are thatH. erectus was confined to that region, was not cognisant with Acheulean handaxe technology, and was not ancestral to modern man.

Se hace una revisión crítica sobre los ancestros del Homo sapiens y se llega a los siguientes resultados y conclusiones: El bipedalismo terrestre es el rasgo característico que separa el clado que conduce a los gorilas y chimpancés, del clado que conduce de los primeros homínidos al hombre. La reducción del canino en los Australopitecus afarensis no fue el producto de la reducción de la agresión entre machos de esta especie. La utilización de herramientas de piedra, encontradas en el ambiente, condujo a la agresión entre machos, reduciendo la presión de selección sobre los caninos como arma. El Homo sapiens condujo a la extinción del Homo neanderthalensis por varios mecanismos: la fabricación de armas tipo proyectil, el lenguaje simbólico articulado, la moral y la exclusión.

For many years, the Neanderthals have been recognized as a distinctive extinct hominid group that occupied Europe and western Asia between about 200,000 and 30,000 years ago. It is still debated, however, whether these hominids belong in their own species, Homo neanderthalensis, or represent an extinct variant of Homo sapiens. Our ongoing studies indicate that the Neanderthals differ from modern humans in their skeletal anatomy in more ways than have been recognized up to now. The purpose of this contribution is to describe specializations of the Neanderthal internal nasal region that make them unique not only among hominids but possibly among terrestrial mammals in general as well. These features lend additional weight to the suggestion that Neanderthals are specifically distinct from Homo sapiens.

A detailed endocranial cast of the olfactory bulb of Amphipithecus mogaungensis, a latest middle Eocene primate from the Pondaung Formation (Myanmar), was studied in comparison with some Paleogene primates, the olfactory bulb of which has been reported. The olfactory bulb of Amphipithecus is located just anterior to the postorbital constriction, that is, within the interorbital septum. It is relatively large and pedunculate, not overlapped by the frontal lobe, and consists of two parallell aligned bodies. The relative volume of the olfactory bulb shows the same pattern as in adapiforms, but the location and bilobed form are more similar to those of omomyoids than of adapiforms.

A modern human-like sequence of dental development, as a proxy for the pace of life history, is regarded as one of the diagnostic hallmarks of our own genus Homo. Brain size, age at first reproduction, lifespan and other life-history traits correlate tightly with dental development. Here we report differences in enamel growth that show the earliest fossils attributed to Homo do not resemble modern humans in their development. We used daily incremental markings in enamel to calculate rates of enamel formation in 13 fossil hominins and identified differences in this key determinant of tooth formation time. Neither australopiths nor fossils currently attributed to early Homo shared the slow trajectory of enamel growth typical of modern humans; rather, both resembled modern and fossil African apes. We then reconstructed tooth formation times in australopiths, in the approximately 1.5-Myr-old Homo erectus skeleton from Nariokotome, Kenya, and in another Homo erectus specimen, Sangiran S7-37 from Java. These times were shorter than those in modern humans. It therefore seems likely that truly modern dental development emerged relatively late in human evolution.

This study uses the two developmental fields of dental maturation and femoral growth to determine if the pattern of growth and development in Neandertals (archaic Homo sapiens ) was intermediate between that of Homo erectus and recent modern humans. Specimens used in the analysis included Neandertals and Upper Palaeolithic early modern Homo sapiens from Europe and individuals from two recent modern human populations. Ontogenetic data for the H. erectus adolescent KNM-WT 15000 and for Gorilla gorilla were included for comparison. Previous reports have indicated that H. erectus demonstrates a pattern of ontogeny characterized by earlier and more rapid linear growth than in modern humans. Results reported here demonstrate that Upper Paleolithic early modern Homo sapiens display a growth trajectory indistinguishable from that of recent modern humans. The pattern of Neandertal ontogeny is not intermediate between the pattern displayed in H. erectus and the derived pattern seen in the modern reference samples and the early modern H. sapiens sample. The Neandertal growth trajectory is consistent with either slow linear growth or advanced dental development.

The upright posture and obligatory bipedalism of modern humans are unique among living primates. The evolutionary history of this behaviour has traditionally been pursued by functional analysis of the postcranial skeleton and the preserved footprint trails of fossil hominids. Here we report a systematic attempt to reconstruct the locomotor behaviour of early hominids by looking at a major component of the mechanism for the unconscious perception of movement, namely by examining the vestibular system of living primates and early hominids. High-resolution computed tomography was used to generate cross-sectional images of the bony labyrinth. Among the fossil hominids the earliest species to demonstrate the modern human morphology is Homo erectus. In contrast, the semicircular canal dimensions in crania from southern Africa attributed to Australopithecus and Paranthropus resemble those of the extant great apes. Among early Homo specimens, the canal dimensions of Stw 53 are unlike those seen in any of the hominids or great apes, whereas those of SK 847 are modern-human-like.

Fossils recognized as early Homo were discovered first at Olduvai Gorge in 1959 and 1960. Teeth, skull parts and hand bones representing three individuals were found in Bed I, and more material followed from Bed I and lower Bed II. By 1964, L.S.B. Leakey, P.V. Tobias, and J.R. Napier were ready to name Homo habilis. But almost as soon as they had, there was confusion over the hypodigm of the new species. Tobias himself suggested that OH 13 resembles Homo erectus from Java, and he noted that OH 16 has teeth as large as those of Australopithecus. By the early 1970s, however, Tobias had put these thoughts behind him and returned to the opinion that all of the Olduvai remains are Homo habilis. At about this time, important discoveries began to flow from the Koobi Fora region in Kenya. To most observers, crania such as KNM-ER 1470 confirmed the presence of Homo in East Africa at an early date. Some of the other specimens were problematical. A.C. Walker and R.E. Leakey raised the possibility that larger skulls including KNM-ER 1470 differ significantly from smaller-brained, small-toothed individuals such as KNM-ER 1813. Other workers emphasized that there are differences of shape as well as size among the hominids from Koobi Fora. There is now substantial support for the view that in the Turkana and perhaps also in the Olduvai assemblages, there is more variation than would be expected among male and female conspecifics. One way to approach this question of sorting would be to compare all of the new fossils against the original material from Olduvai which was used to characterize Homo habilis in 1964. A problem is that the Olduvai remains are fragmentary, and none of them provides much information about vault form or facial structure. An alternative is to work first with the better crania, even if these are from other sites. I have elected to treat KNM-ER 1470 and KNM-ER 1813 as key individuals. Comparisons are based on discrete anatomy and measurements. Metric results are displayed with ratio diagrams, by which similarity in proportions for several skulls can be assessed in respect to a single specimen selected as a standard. Crania from Olduvai examined in this way are generally smaller than KNM-ER 1470, although OH 7 has a relatively long parietal. In the Koobi Fora assemblage, there is variation in brow thickness, frontal flattening and parietal shape relative to KNM-ER 1470. These comparisons are instructive, but vault proportions do not help much with the sorting process. Contrasts in the face are much more striking. Measurements treated in ratio diagrams show that both KNM-ER 1813 and OH 24 have relatively short faces with low cheek bones, small orbits and low nasal openings. Also, they display more projection of the midfacial region, just below the nose. This is not readily interpreted to be a female characteristic, since in most hominoid primates the females tend to have flatter lower faces than the males. The obvious size differences among these individuals have usually been interpreted as sex dimorphism, but, in fact, two taxa may be sampled at Olduvai and in the Turkana basin at the beginning of the Pleistocene. One large-brained group made up of KNM-ER 1470, several other Koobi Fora specimens, and probably OH 7, can be called Homo habilis. If these skulls go with femora such as KNM-ER 1481 and the KNM-ER3228 hip, then this species is close in postcranial anatomy to Homo erectus. The other taxon, including small-brained individuals such as KNM-ER 1813 and probably OH 13, seems also to be Homo rather than Australopithecus. If the OH 62 skeleton is part of this assemblage, then the small hominids have postcranial proportions unlike those of Homo erectus. However, it is too early to point unequivocally to one or the other of these groups as the ancestors of later humans. Both differ from Homo erectus in important ways, and both need to be better understood before we can map the earliest history of the Homo clade. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

International audience; Recent observations on an ontogenetic craniofacial phenomenon have led to new concepts of facial morphogenesis and to recognition of a process called craniofacial contraction. This begins at embryogenesis, in association with the growth of the brain. The degree of craniofacial contraction is acquired in major part during embryogenesis. It separates the living primates into four ontogenic levels: prosimians, monkeys, apes and Homo sapiens ('Sapiens'). The phenomenon is modeled and quantified using an architectural analysis, the double pantograph. The hypothesis is that hominization represents a continous phenomenon from fossil apes to Sapiens, î.e. an increase in the embryonic contraction, but with discontinous effects, i.e. ontogenic organization plans. The fossil hominid record verifies the hypothesis. Hominization appears as a continuons process of craniofacial contraction, with three ontogenic thresholds: Australopithecus, Homo and Sapiens. Neanderthal man is not Sapiens. He results from a decrease in the embryonic contraction of Homo erectus, in association with an impoverishment of the meningeal vascularization. Sapiens does not emerge before skulls such as Qafzeh. The increase in endocranial capacity in Homo does not alone allow us to define an evolutionary trend in Sapiens. The concept of archaic H. sapiens has no ontogenic reality.

Much information about the evolution of earlier humans has come to light in Asia. A number of important Pleistocene sites are located in China and in Indonesia, and it was of course in Java that the first fossils of Homo erectus were discovered by Eugene Dubois late in the last century. Dubois, a young Dutch physician, went to Indonesia to find the missing link, and he was tremendously lucky. His first specimen, a mandibular fragment, turned up at Kedung Brubus in 1890, and the famous Trinil skullcap was excavated from the banks of the Solo River in central Java in 1891. Dubois' assistants continued to dig at Trinil for another decade, and large quantities of mammal bones were shipped back to Holland. Only a few more hominids were found, and some of the postcranial remains that did appear managed to escape notice for more than 30 years after they were returned to the museum in Leiden. Later, in the 1920s, more fossils were recovered far to the north, from limestone cave deposits near Beijing in China. This site at Zhoukoudian proved to be immensely rich, and quite a number of well preserved skulls and other bones were eventually excavated from different levels in the cave. Although nearly all of this Chinese Homo erectus material was lost during World War II, descriptions of the crania, jaws, teeth and limb bones are on record (Weidenreich, 1936, 1937, 1941, 1943).

In this week9s issue of Nature, an incredibly rare trunk and limb bones of early Homo erectus suggest that the species wasn9t always as tall and brainy as previous fossils had led researchers to believe.

Although quantitative variations exist between living Man (Homo sapiens sapiens) and the extant great apes (Pongo, Pan, Gorilla) in such features of the articular surface of the temporal bone (a part of the temporomandibular joint) as the proportionate development of the postglenoid tubercle, the relative prominence of the articular tubercle and the slope of its posterior face, these do not individually effect a clear differentiation between the four extant genera. But in multivariate combination of these features, although Pan and Pongo are relatively closely associated, Gorilla and Homo sapiens sapiens are distinct, and also clearly differentiated from each other. The differences between genera of extant apes are, on average, as great as those between extant Man and individual apes. As portrayed by such multivariate compound, this anatomical region in four fossil groups displays a unique configuration differentiating Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Homo erectus pekinensis, Australopithecus africanus and Australopithecus robustus both from one another and from extant types. The differences are such that the fossil species lie uniquely and not intermediate between extant groups. Definable age changes in this multivariate compound occur in both Man and apes but neither these, nor overall differences between adults, appear to be associated with marked contrasts in the pattern of jaw movement. It would thus seem improbable that inferences can be made from these features about the type of jaw movement that characterized the several fossil groups.

Laetoli Hominid 18 (LH 18) was found by Dr M. D. Leakey's team in 1976. The Ngaloba beds at Lactoli, Tanzania from which it comes have been dated at approximately 120,000±30,000 years B.P. The description of the skull is summarized here, and it is shown to incorporate a mixture of both archaic and modern features, and have a likely cranial capacity of about 1200 cc. Morphological comparisons with other early African Homo sapiens crania show that although there are some differences between them and LH 18, there are enough similarities to suggest that they all belong to a single species. LH 18 is shown to be quite unlike the Homo erectus and Neanderthal crania studied. Metrical analyses confirm the links between LH 18 and the other archaic Homo sapiens crania from Africa, especially Eyasi and Omo 1. The similarites between these crania provide a good example of mosaic evolution, incorporating a range of cranial variation within a single species.

Age related varation in 16 skull dimensions of male and female lynx Lynx lynx (Linnaeus, 1758) recorded, based on a collection of 281 specimens (156 males and 125 females) caught in different parts of Norway during the ten year period 1960 to 1969. Three main growth patterns were recognized: most skull dimensions were found to increase with age, while the lengths of the carnassials were unrelated to age and the breadth of the postorbital constriction decreased with age.

The partial cranium from Lake Ndutu, near Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, has generally been viewed as Homo erectus, although points of similarity to H. sapiens have also been recognized. Bones of the vault are in fact quite thick, and the cranium is small. Length and breadth dimensions are comparable to those of earlier H. erectus from Koobi Fora and Ileret, and the Ndutu individual is more similar in size to O.H. 12 than to O.H. 9. Unfortunately, the facial skeleton and frontal bone are very incomplete, and little useful information can be obtained from these parts of the existing reconstruction. The parietals are also damaged, but the left temporal is more satisfactorily preserved, and the occiput is nearly complete. Occipital morphology, mastoid shape, and characteristics of the glenoid cavity and tympanic plate probably provide the best available guide to affinities of the Ndutu hominid. In many of these features the cranium resembles Broken Hill, Elandsfontein, and other African fossils referred to archaic H. sapiens. There are some similarities to modern humans also, but no ties to the Neanderthals of Europe. Allocation of Ndutu to an African subspecies of H. sapiens seems most appropriate, even if the pattern of relationships between such archaic populations and recent humans is still unclear.

Propalorchestes novaculacephalus gen. et sp.nov. is a comparatively small Ngapakaldia Stirton-like diprotodontoid marsupial represented by an edentulous, extremely narrow, high braincase fragment with a marked postorbital constriction n. Details of its cranial base, glenoid fossa morphology and auditory region indicate that it is aligned with the Palorchestinae. The overall morphology of P. novaculacephalus braincase morphology emphasizes the uniqueness of this evolutionary lineage of marsupials.