The same growth pattern from puberty suggests that modern human diversity results from changes during pre-pubertal development

International audience; Models of human growth established for one population has been rarely tested in other population. In a previous study, three growth curves from puberty were modelled for each sex in a longitudinal study of a Caucasian population based on stature, age at peak of growth and biological maturation. Each curve represent the growth canalization associated with the kind of puberty which is defined from the age at the peak of growth (advanced, standard, delayed). The high precision (±3 cm) of individual adult stature prediction reveals a growth kinetics already set up at puberty which follows canalization depending on biological maturity. Our aim is to assess whether this model can be extrapolated to other population in order to test if canalization is a population dependent phenomenon or if the model reflects a canalization specific to our species. The modelled curves were used to predict adult stature in two groups, basketball players and the Baka pygmies. They predict adult stature with the same high precision than in the standard population (±3 cm). Therefore, 1) the relationship between growth kinetics and age at maturity is similar in all three populations and 2) growth depending on puberty stages follows the same canalizations in the three population despite they present a large difference in average adult size. The validity of the model for populations which represent modern human variation in stature suggest that the modern human morphological diversity would result by processes taking place in early development, most probably as adaptive response to environmental constraints.